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BR  163  .W45  1898 

Wenley,  Robert  Mark,  1861- 

1929. 
The  preparation  for 

r.hr  1  cit  1  ;qn-i  t V    in    thp    anr.ienti 


The  Preparation  for  Christianity 


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Preparation  for  Christianity 

In   the   Ancient   World 


A  Study  in  the  History 
of  Moral     Development 


y  BY 

R.  M.WENLEY,  Sc.D.(Edm.),  D.Phil.  (Glas.) 

Professor  of  Philosophy  in  the  University  of  Michigan 

sometime  Honorary  President  of  the  Glasgow 

University  Theological  Society 


New  York      Chicago      Toronto 

Fleming   H.    Revell    Company 

Publishers  of  Evangelical  Literature 


Copyright,  1898, 

by 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company. 


Preface 


Scholars  who  have  themselves  passed  through 
a  similar  experience  are  well  aware  that  the  pro- 
duction of  a  small  book  of  the  class  to  which 
this  belongs  is  more  difficult,  in  some  respects, 
than  the  composition  of  the  customary  exact 
academic  monograph.  Except  in  an  attempt  to 
make  the  past  vivid,  these  pages  lay  no  claim  to 
special  originality.  Processes  are  entirely  sup- 
pressed, results  alone  appear.  The  selection  and 
compression,  inseparable  from  the  presentation, 
have  been  directed  toward  rendering  the  picture 
as  a  whole  more  impressive  and  less  easily  mis- 
taken. 

For  the  information  of  American  readers  I  may 
add  that  this  little  book  has  been  prepared  for 
the  Church  of  Scotland,  ''Guild  Series."  '  The 
Guild  is  an  organization  of  the  young  people  of 
the  Church.  Among  its  many  admirable  activ- 
ities none  is  more  praiseworthy  than  the  provis- 
ion of  this  series  of  volumes  designed  to  deepen 
the  intelligent  interest  of  the  laity  in  all  ques- 
tions connected  with  the  origin,  nature,  history, 
and  extension  of  the  Christian  religion. 

Although  no  similar  organization  exists  in  the 
United  States,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  the  numer- 
ous colleges  and  societies  connected  with  the  va- 
rious Churches  are  well  calculated  to  carry  on 
parallel  work.  It  is  in  the  hope  that  this  sketch 
may  be  found  useful  by  their  members  that  I  have 
ventured  upon  the  present  issue. 

5     . 


6  PREFACE 

Portions  of  the  fifth  chapter  are  reprinted  from 
The  Jewish  Quarterly  Review  (London),  a 
magazine  far  too  little  read  by  the  Christian 
community,  one  containing  some  admirable 
studies  of  aspects  of  the  Jewish  faith  in  all  ages. 

R.  M.  WENLEY. 

Ann  Arbor,  Micb.. ^  January ,  1898. 

I  The  series  of  Guild  Text-books  are  published  in 
America  by  Fleming  H.  Revell  Company.  See  list  at 
end  of  this  work. 


Contents 

Chap.  Page. 

I.  Introductory ,  9 

11.  Socrates  as  a  Missionary  of  the  Hu- 
man Spirit ,  24 

III.  Greek  Self-Criticism ,  50 

IV.  Salvation  by  Wisdom ,  71 

V.  The  Mission  of  the  Jews 93 

VI.  The  Advent  of  the  Saviour 113 

VII.  The  Preparation  of  the  World  ....  143 

VIII.  The  Preparation  of  the  Spirit    ....  158 

IX.  Conclusion 183 

Index 191 


The  Preparation  for  Christianity  in  the 

Ancient  World;    A   Study  in    the 

History  of  Moral  Development 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTORY 

"  The  earnest  expectation  of  the  creature  waiteth  for  the 
manifestation  of  the  sons  of  God." — Rom.  viii.  19. 

Whatever  else  it  may  or  may  not  be,  Chris- 
tianity is  one  of  the  great  historical  religions.  It 
centres  in  a  stupendous  fact ;  it  was  born  into  a 
universal  empire,  the  state  of  which  at  the  moment 
is  matter  of  history  ;  all  the  circumstances  of  the 
time  imperatively  demanded  the  new  revelation, 
and  conspired  to  the  successful  propagation  of 
the  "good  news."  Accordingly,  historical  in- 
quiry may  be  directed  to  one  of  two  points :  either 
to  the  Person  and  Life  of  the  Founder,  or  to  the 
conditions  that  prepared  the  way  before  Him  and 
speedily,  when  the  immense  obstacles  are  duly 
weighed,  laid  the  old  Roman  world  at  His  feet. 
Consideration  of  Christ's  person  and  work  is  an 
altogether  subordinate  part  of  our  present  pur- 
pose, and  attention  must  be  concentrated  mainly 
on  pre-Christian  customs  and  their  meaning. 
For  our  problem  is: — What  were  the  essential 
features  in  the  development  of  man's  religious, 
moral,  and  social  needs  throughout  the  ancient 
Classical  and  Hebrew  civilizations  that  ultimately 
ended  in  a  spiritual  impotence  curable  by  Chris- 
tianity alone? 


lO  PREPARATION   FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

Obviously,  in  a  study  like  this,  everything  turns 
upon  the  view  of  history  adopted  at  the  outset. 
If  the  past  be  no  more  than  a  series  of  haphazard 
occurrences,  without  inter-relationship  and  devoid 
of  influences  whereto  results  may  be  traced,  then 
any  discussion  such  as  is  now  proposed  becomes 
meaningless  beforehand.  A  mere  series  fails  in 
a  deep  sense  to  be  a  series  at  all.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  the  word  Providence — old-fashioned  as 
many  now  deem  it — possess  significance,  if  history 
be  a  single  whole  wherein  events  take  their  places 
as  parts  of  a  developing  organism,  and  conse- 
quences may  be  read  dependent  upon  numerous 
incidents  that  slowly  but  distinctly  lead  up  to 
them,  then  a  problem  of  enormous  interest  and 
fertility  confronts  us.  There  can  be  no  question 
that  the  entire  trend  of  modern  inquiry  has  been 
in  this  direction,  and,  without  further  parley,  its 
adoption  may  now  be  proclaimed.  But,  by  way 
of  introduction,  one  is  compelled  to  analyze  this 
doctrine  somewhat  more  fully. 

Like  all  other  subjects,  history  has  its  peculiar 
presuppositions.  At  first  sight,  these  naturally 
appear  to  be  very  numerous.  Nationalities,  with 
corresponding  divisions  of  territory,  are  immedi- 
ately conjured  up.  Battles  and  other  mighty 
doings  in  endless  kinds  float  vaguely  through  the 
brain.  Fixed  institutions,  themselves  the  result 
of  tedious  conflict  of  opinion,  occur  to  one. 
Man's  sufferings  and  aspirations,  his  triumphs  and 
disappointments  and  defeats  successively,  or  to- 
gether, put  in  their  several  pleas  for  a  hearing. 
The  rise  and  fall  of  principalities  and  powers  un- 
fold before  the  eye,  or  the  clash  of  mighty  forces, 
involving  the  rupture  of  momentous  empires, 
breaks  thunderously  upon  the  inward  ear.  Yet 
after  all,  these,  and  such  as  these,  may  be  summed 
up   in   a  single   and   comparatively  simple   ex- 


INTRODUCTORY  I I 

pression.  History  exists  because  man  is  a  social 
being.  Society,  in  the  broadest  sense,  is  its  one 
presupposition.  Till  men  have  entered  into 
combinations  with  one  another,  history  remains 
unenacted,  impossible.  Nor  can  this  association 
be  viewed  as  accidental.  No  doubt,  some  few  in- 
stances of  it  present  unaccountable  features ;  but, 
nevertheless,  association  itself  furnishes  the  prime 
condition  under  which  men  act,  by  a  force  that 
cannot  be  called  compulsion,  when,  as  indi- 
viduals or  as  groups,  they  rise  to  possession  of 
significance  worthy  the  name  historical. 

We  are  so  wedded  now  to  analogies  derived 
from  scientific  or  quasi-scientific  apparatus,  that 
we  often  find  it  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to 
comprehend  what  precisely  ''a  force  that  is  not 
compulsion"  implies.  A  man,  we  say,  is  the 
creature  of  circumstances,  whether  nearer,  like 
his  parents  and  upbringing,  or  remoter,  like  the 
institutions  of  his  nation  and  the  general  temper- 
ament of  his  century.  Or,  again,  we  think  we 
have  explained  him  when  we  call  him  the  child 
of  his  time.  This  idea,  seductive  by  its  very 
ease,  fails  to  find  warrant  in  the  facts.  If  it  be 
abundantly  true  that  "God  has  so  arranged  the 
chronometry  of  our  spirits  that  there  shall  be 
thousands  of  silent  moments  between  the  strik- 
ing hours,"  it  is  abundantly  false  to  suppose  that 
the  "silent  moments"  are  therefore  lost  or  use- 
less. The  impression  of  compelling  force  so  dis- 
tinctly left  upon  us  by  historical  movements  may 
be  traced  to  asimilar  "chronometry."  Millions 
of  silent  souls  there  are,  have  been,  and  always 
will  be, — only  some  few  strike.  And  the  im- 
portant fact  lies,  not  in  the  silence  of  many  and 
the  sonority  of  some,  but  in  the  utterance  by  the 
few  of  the  innermost  thoughts  of  the  many. 
'*  He   told   me   all   that   ever  I  did/'  said  the 


12  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

woman  of  Samaria,  illustrating  by  this  expression 
one  of  the  profoundest  features  of  universal  his- 
tory. The  countless  dumb  thousands  are  not 
lost,  for  they  are  the  real  originators  of  the  ideas 
voiced  by  the  one.  In  him  these  ideas  are 
brought  to  a  point,  from  him  they  go  forth  de- 
fined and  act  with  missionary  power,  transform- 
ing all  those  who  recognize  them  for  their  own, 
and  insensibly  influencing  many  who  have  never 
even  heard  the  doctrine.  Now  this  is  possible, 
nay,  eternal,  because  societies  are  held  together  by 
spiritual  bonds  stronger  far  than  steel.  Even 
when  the  groundlings  appear  to  be  constrained, 
they  are  simply  coming  into  closer  contact  with 
the  opportunities  through  which  alone  they  can 
build  up  their  fullest  life.  Air  and  water  and 
mother  earth  no  more  hamper  the  plant  than  the 
society  to  which  he  belongs  hampers  the  peasant, 
the  laborer,  the  underling  in  any  sort.  Prince 
and  president,  prophet  and  poet,  are  in  very 
sooth  ministers  as  much  as  the  merest  ploughboy. 
For  all  must  serve  in  order  to  arrive  at  the  most 
meagre  kingdom.     And  why? 

The  spiritual  links  of  society  are  not  dependent 
upon  intellectual  preeminence,  nor  are  they 
bound  up  with  intimate  knowledge  of  the  phys- 
ical universe.  Man  forges  them  out  of  that  dis- 
tinctive quality  of  his,  the  ability  to  form  pur- 
poses, to  frame  ideals.  Ideals  constitute  the 
warp  and  woof  of  society,  thus  only  they  are  the 
web  of  history.  Hard  as  this  saying  may  seem 
at  the  first  blush,  it  only  expresses  one  of  the 
most  familiar  facts  in  common  life.  We  all  live 
upon  purposes.  They  not  only  rule  us  directly, 
but  often  exhibit  startling  power  of  self-inversion. 
Is  not  the  road  to  hell  paved  with  good  intentions, 
heaven  won  by  those  most  scarred  in  closest  com- 
bat with  iniquity?     Our  days,  our  weeks,  our 


INTRODUCTORY  1 3 

months,  our  years,  nay,  our  years  upon  years,  are 
laid  out  by  us  beforehand.  On  the  whole,  we 
intend  to  realize  such  and  such  aims ;  and  in 
their  beginnings  all  aims  are  equally  ideals. 
They  do  not  exist  in  reality,  as  the  saying  is,  yet 
they  are  more  real  than  the  solidest  things. 
They  do  not  live  simply  in  the  brain  ;  for  while 
they  must  doubtless  be  referred  to  brain-work  for 
their  origin,  this  is  immediately  reinforced  by 
sentiment  for  their  approval  or  consecration,  and 
by  will  for  their  accomplishment. 

But,  further,  there  are  ideals  and  ideals.  Our 
ordinary  day-in,  day-out  designs  present  for  the 
greater  part  no  insurmountable  obstacles  to  their 
execution.  The  same  hardly  holds  true  of  the 
larger  purposes  that  control  a  lifetime  or  an  age, 
a  people  or  an  entire  civilization.  When  I  say, 
I  shall  go  to  Chicago  on  Wednesday,  or  I  shall 
travel  to  Scotland  next  month,  I  am  sensible  that 
there  is  a  difference  in  degree  of  difficulty  in 
carrying  out  the  two  intentions.  But  there  is  a 
difference  in  kind,  a  gulf  absolutely  fixed,  be- 
tween these  resolves  and  others  such  as  those; 
I  shall  try  to  write  a  really  great  book,  or, 
henceforward,  I  shall  try  to  lead  a  completely 
righteous  life.  We  cannot  state  the  two  classes 
of  intention  with  any  relative  equality  of  assur- 
ance in  respect  of  results.  In  the  former  cases, 
means  and  end  so  fit  that  achievement  appears 
easy,  and  actually  is  so.  In  the  latter,  an  un- 
bridged  interval  stands  between  the  resolve  as 
conceived  and  the  design  as  completed — as  ac- 
tually built  into  life.  Now,  it  is  precisely  in  ex- 
ecuting the  latter  that  man  affords  ever  increas- 
ingly conclusive  proof  of  his  origin.  Passing 
along  these  higher  paths,  he  grows  sensibly  into 
the  image  of  God,  bringing  forth  from  the  riches 
of  his  own  soul  both  the  purpose  and  the  mate- 


14  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

rial  to  work  its  realization.  For  these  designs 
demand  a  strenuousness,  an  expenditure  of  spir- 
itual energy,  a  militant  idealism  in  short,  such  as 
never  even  enter  into  the  former  calculations. 

But  the  reason  why  history  is  fashioned  out  of 
ideals  essentially  identical  in  nature  with  the  latter 
rather  than  with  the  former  examples,  is  simply 
because  these  are  the  controlling  forces  that  orig- 
inate, nourish,  and  mould  the  associations  called 
tribes,  nations,  and  races.  And  in  these  ideals 
all  men  so  associated  are  partakers,  notwithstand- 
ing the  comparative  unconsciousness  of  the  im- 
mense majority.  Thus,  while  many  seem  to  be 
swept  along  as  by  an  irresistible  current,  this 
view  of  their  life  is  entirely  misleading.  All 
that  the  greatest  can  render  to  his  age  or  to  his 
country  is,  in  larger  part,  a  rendering  back. 
Thanks  to  superior  insight,  he  seizes  upon  the 
most  salient  opportunities  offered  by  his  universe, 
working  upon  materials  that  lie  equally  open  to 
all  his  fellows,  nay,  upon  materials  which  they 
cannot  but  already  share  with  him.  The  com- 
pulsion to  which,  as  we  imagine,  the  mass  lies  in 
bondage  is  but  another  aspect  under  which  the 
same  opportunities  are  expressing  themselves. 
All  that  is  of  worth  in  the  career  of  the  most  un- 
distinguished person  flows  from  his  myriad  neigh- 
bors ;  and  if  he  apparently  pay  more  dearly  for 
it  than  the  so-called  leaders,  it  is  simply  because 
he  obtains  less,  commonly  by  his  own  fault,  from 
the  only  source  whence  anything  at  all  is  to  be 
gained.  It  is  ''  better  to  be  a  doorkeeper  in  the 
house  of  the  Lord  than  to  dwell  in  the  tents  of 
sin  for  ever."  Our  opportunities  are  not  those 
of  an  Armenian,  and  if  we  grumble  at  taxes  and 
tariffs,  we  are  just  forgetting  for  a  moment  that 
no  opportunity  whatsoever  can  be  had  in  a  social 
vacuum.     The  thing  is  a  contradiction  in  fact, — 


INTRODUCTORY  1 5 

it  never  did,  it  never  can,  exist.  In  other  words, 
the  compulsion  wherein,  at  first  sight,  history 
seems  so  prodigal  is  but  another  name  for  free- 
dom, for  the  attendant  circumstances  in  which 
alone  human  beings  are  capable  of  rising 

On  stepping-stones 
Of  their  dead  selves  to  higher  things. 

Nowhere,  except  in  a  universe  of  society,  can 
the  major  ideals  be  generated,  and  nohow,  ex- 
cept by  the  means  offered  in  such  a  universe 
alone,  can  an  attempt  be  made  to  realize  them 
with  faintest  hope  of  success.  As  man  is  the 
strongest  of  created  beings  by  virtue  of  his  soci- 
ability, so  too,  in  isolation,  he  is  the  most  pov- 
erty-stricken. Therefore,  only  in  weakness,  in 
dependence,  is  his  strength  made  perfect.  The 
more  he  leans  upon  his  fellow-men,  the  more  typ- 
ically human  he  becomes ;  yet  the  more  he  lays 
himself  open  to  the  intolerable  griefs  which  mis- 
understanding and  faction  and  death  every  day 
inevitably  bring.  The  spots  wherein  he  may  be 
sorely  stricken  tend  to  multiply  themselves  infi- 
nitely as  the  enrichment  of  his  humanity  proceeds. 
The  heartless  brute  who  beats  his  wife  and  starves 
his  children,  the  sensual  dog  who  exists  upon 
momentary  pleasure,  are  indeed  under  compul- 
sion, if  you  choose  to  say  so.  They  are  thus 
driven  just  because  they  have  decided  to  be 
brutes  and  dogs, — not  human  beings,  who  live 
their  truest  life  when  they  are  apprehended  of 
some  vision  from  a  better  world  which  they 
strive,  amid  many  discouragements,  to  realize  in 
common  workaday  tasks.  This  very  striving  it 
is  that  makes  these  strenuous  souls  historical. 
Though  subject  to  manifold  disappointments, 
they  stand  forth  the  true  potters  of  permanence, 


1 6  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

out   of   limitation    they    prove    themselves  the 
builders  of  infinity. 

Thus,  and  only  thus,  paradox  though  it  be, 
*Uhe  earnest  expectation  of  the  creature  waiteth 
for  the  manifestation  of  the  sons  of  God."  For 
we  are  all  creatures  and  sons  at  one  and  the  same 
time.  As  creatures,  we  recognize  ourselves  the 
subjects  of  numerous  restrictions — of  body,  of 
mind,  and  of  the  society  or  period  into  which 
we  are  born.  As  sons  of  God,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  are  creators  of  influential  aspirations, 
and  serve  ourselves  heirs  to  the  immortal  achieve- 
ments of  the  ages.  So,  limited  though  we  may 
be,  we  look  for  another  country,  and  hail  great 
men — especially  those  of  our  own  hour — enthusi- 
astically, because  they  intimate  to  us,  with  a 
prophecy  which  we  at  once  recognize  as  true,  the 
actual  presence  of  this  other  world  in  the  condi- 
tions governing  our  most  prosaic  duties,  in  the 
sweet  relations  that  render  life  worth  living,  in 
the  faiths  for  which  we  would  die,  not  because 
they  are  true,  but  because  they  are  ours, 
seeing  that  with  them  we  identify  our  in- 
nermost well-being  and  that  of  our  contem- 
poraries. The  pity  is,  that  we  so  often  fail  to 
recognize  the  sources  of  their  greatness,  fail  to 
perceive  that  these  few  who  have  proved  all 
things  and  held  fast  to  that  which  is  good  in  our 
eyes,  are  in  uttermost  verity  bone  of  our  bone 
and  flesh  of  our  flesh.  Thus  we  miss  the  self- 
sacrifice  that  is  the  sole  secret  of  their  power, 
and,  whimpering  over  limitations  that  must  be 
accepted  to  be  overpassed,  still  continue  to  pose 
as  if  we  alone  forsooth  were  thus  unjustifiably 
cribbed,  cabined,  and  confined.  So,  almost  de- 
liberately, men  put  away  the  joys  of  filling  their 
time  and  place;  for  they  forget  that  the  time  is 
the  present,  that  the  place  is  here  and  at  hand, 


INTRODUCTORY  I 7 

in  a  vain  effort  to  lay  hold  upon  a  time  that  is 
not  now,  and  to  seize  a  place  which  is  supposed 
to  be  anywhere  but  near.  So,  too  often,  what 
wonder  that  life  is  declaimed  against  as 

A  tale 
Told  by  an  idiot,  full  of  sound  and  fury, 
Signifying  nothing. 

Unconscious  that,  in  the  vast  organism  of  human- 
ity, whereof  history  is  but  the  outer  record,  each 
has  his  function  to  subserve,  many  men  remain 
creatures.  Yet,  for  all  this,  they  cannot  re- 
nounce their  sonship  entirely,  because,  so  cir- 
cumstanced, they  yearn  the  more  eagerly  for  a 
deliverer.  And  the  deliverer  often  does  come  in 
his  own  way  and  in  his  own  good  time,  setting 
free  the  captive  and  realizing  the  earnest  expec- 
tation, not  by  what  he  achieves,  but  by  the  spirit 
of  his  work.  For,  always  and  everywhere,  the 
chiefest  lesson  he  can  read  to  the  earnestly  ex- 
pectant is,  that  * '  all  are  born  to  observe  good 
order,  few  to  establish  it." 

Accordingly,  despite  our  varying  terms,  that 
frequently  bring  dire  confusion  upon  us,  every 
man,  be  he  of  a  tribe,  of  a  nation,  of  a  civiliza- 
tion or  of  an  age,  inhabits  a  city  whose  builder 
and  maker  is  God.  He  is  heir  to  a  spiritual  uni- 
verse, characteristically  revealed  in  its  more  en- 
nobling ideals — in  its  religion,  in  its  morals,  in 
its  social  institutions.  But,  as  human,  he  can- 
not remain  a  mere  passive  recipient.  It  is  his  to 
be  father  as  well  as  heir.  Yet  to  this  end  he 
must  be  wed — wed  to  the  opportunities  that  these 
very  ideals  proffer.  The  parable  of  the  talents  is 
no  mere  tale,  it  is  of  the  ultimate  essence  of  all 
progress.  Unconsciously,  man  is  thus  ever 
united  to  his  humane  inheritance, — not  always 


l8  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

consciously.  In  proportion  as  he  earnestly  ex- 
pects the  manifestation,  he  is  unconscious,  and 
no  more  than  a  recipient ;  in  proportion  as  he  con- 
tributes to  it  he  is  positively  a  father,  and  reveals 
his  own  sonship  in  returning  something,  if  not 
.double,  for  all  he  has  received.  In  neither  case 
jcan  he  escape  the  unity  wherein,  by  his  very  ex- 
istence, he  partakes.  He  is  ever  attempting  to 
live  out  the  pervading  ideals  of  his  spiritual  uni- 
verse, waiting  with  earnest  expectation  when  he 
recognizes  them  not,  manifesting  them,  and  him- 
self, when  he  seeks  to  realize  them.  On  the 
one  hand  a  creature,  he  vindicates  his  divine  son- 
ship  on  the  other.  But  invariably,  creature  and 
son  are  of  one  blood,  because  the  universe  that 
both  inhabit  is  the  Lord's.  The  passion  for 
unity — the  central  idea  of  the  nineteenth  century 
— differs  not  one  whit  for  the  day-laborer  and 
the  master  of  all  the  poets,  for  the  burdened 
agnostic,  the  religious  enthusiast  and  the  great 
scientific  discoverer.  They  but  perceive  the  same 
principle  in  different  lights.  One  has  it  in  his 
trade  union ;  the  other  sublimates  it  in  his 

God's  in  His  heaven — 
All's  right  with  the  world ! 

the  third  detects  it  in  his  *' differentiation  rising 
to  ever  more  complex  integration ;  "  the  next  mir- 
rors it  in  his  kingdom  of  heaven ;  and  the  last 
reads  it  everywhere  by  aid  of  the  operative  con- 
ception of  evolution.  All  know  that  man  has 
annihilated  space  and  time,  that  at  length  toil 
possesses  its  reward  and  the  world  is  one.  For 
all  alike  the  ideal,  constituting  the  universe 
wherein  they  live  and  move  and  have  their  be- 
ing, is  the  same.  Yet  no  one  is  an  expectant 
creature  in  the  same  sense  as  any  other ;  no  one 


INTRODUCTORY  1 9 

a  son  of  God  in  precise  measure  with  his  fellows. 
By  their  very  contrasts  they  strongly  confirm  the 
disclosure  of  a  single  pervasive  unity.  So  it 
ever  has  been,  so,  humanly  speaking,  it  ever 
must  be. 

And  when  we  come  to  look  across  the  spread- 
out  page  of  history,  the  records  of  the  past  ac- 
quire tenfold  meaning,  and  can  be  intelligently 
read  only  in  proportion  as  we  are  swift  to  .recog- 
nize all  this.  Men  have  achieved  greatness  and 
nations  have  handed  on  imperishable  things — 
they  have  possessed  significance  in  short — solely 
as  they  have  forgotten  to  ask,  "  What  shall  we 
eat  ?  or,  What  shall  we  drink  ?  or,  Wherewithal 
shall  we  be  clothed?"  and  have  remembered  to 
seek  ''first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  right- 
eousness." That  is  to  say,  the  world  has  been 
laid  under  obligations,  that  can  never  be  repaid, 
precisely  by  those  who  have  been  quick  to  grasp 
the  essential,  the  ideal,  element  in  the  universe 
they  inhabited.  Thus  alone  have  all  these  things 
— power,  fame,  permanence  in  achievement  for 
progress,  goodness,  vital  truth — been  added  unto 
them.  The  greatness  of  the  United  States  in 
these  last  days  does  not  consist  in  anything  ma- 
terial, but  in  the  simple  truth — its  justification — 
that  it  is  one  of  the  chief  civilizing  agencies  now 
operating  on  this  earth.  On  the  other  hand, 
whenever, — their  task  done  or  but  half  com- 
pleted,— societies  have  loosened  their  hold  upon 
spiritual  principles,  decay,  death,  and  dissolution 
have  overtaken  them  with  awful  swiftness.  They 
have  passed,  but  not  entirely.  For,  with  that 
grim  irony  wherein  history  so  abounds,  the  very 
thing  that  one  generation  died  for  or  the  next 
disdained  has  continued  to  traverse  the  centuries 
as  an  imperishable  element  in  the  life  of  later 
ages.     When   the   Greek   forgot  his  joy  in  the 


20  PREPARATION   FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

beauteous  earth,  his  matchless  artistic  cunning 
fled  him ;  when,  in  his  restless  factiousness,  he 
omitted  his  primary  duties  to  the  city-state  that 
had  gifted  him  his  all,  the  kingdom  that  he  once 
enjoyed  vanished  into  thin  air  with  startling 
rapidity.  When  the  Jew  turned  his  back  upon 
the  higher  side  of  prophetic  idealism,  his  own 
God  forsook  His  tender  care  of  the  chosen  na- 
tion ;  when  he  looked  for  an  earthly  Messiah,  his 
race  had  seeming  punishment  in  the  shattering  by 
Roman  legionaries,  its  true  reward  in  the  renewal 
of  prophetism,  not  this  time  as  a  far  off  ideal, 
but  as  an  accomplished  fact — the  divinest  that 
history  can  ever  know.  So  too,  after  that  Ro- 
man character  had  borne  immortal  witness  to  its 
strength  by  the  conquest  of  half  the  world,  it 
was  warped  by  the  very  weight  of  its  own  achieve- 
ments. Yet  some  relish  of  the  old  stock  still  re- 
mained to  accomplish  subjection  of  the  other 
half  and  complete  the  circle  of  empire.  Then, 
in  her  colossal  emptiness,  Rome  swallowed  all 
suggestions  and  all  aids  from  every  quarter  of  the 
known  universe,  took  for  herself  everything  that 
was  best,  having  the  while  nothing  to  repay. 
The  primacy  thus  departed  from  her,  and  the 
magnificent  supremacy  she  had  sought  by  ma- 
terial means  set  itself  down  in  spiritual  shape 
upon  her  seven  storied  hills. 

It  is  indispensable,  then,  to  remember  the 
profound  sense  in  which  all  history  partakes  of 
the  character  of  a  gospel.  Its  every  important 
incident  is  compacted  of  ideals,  of  purposes, 
that  are  drawn  forth  from  the  unexpressed  con- 
sciousness of  the  mass  by  the  greater  spirits, 
whose  winged  words  return  to  the  people  ir- 
resistibly invoking  their  allegiance  and  banding 
them  together  ever  more  closely  for  ends  that  no 
physical  eye  can  see.     We  of  these  latter  days 


INTRODUCTORY  21 

profess  deep  awe  at  the  thought  that  a  word  from 
Queen  or  Czar  or  Kaiser  can  move  hundreds  of 
ships  and  millions  of  men  to  the  work  of  de- 
struction. The  spectacle  that  history  affords  is 
incomparably  more  impressive.  The  impercep- 
tible, the  intangible,  which  we  so  often  count 
for  unreal,  has  swayed,  not  specially  contrived 
machines  or  groups  trained  with  a  purpose,  but 
entire  nations  and  whole  dynasties  from  the 
earliest  known  past  and  continuously  on  through 
all  the  eras.  Its  formative  action  has  not  been 
confined  to  this  or  to  that,  to  these  or  to  those, 
but  has  appeared  ubiquitously  in  every  depart- 
ment of  life  operating,  not  so  much  to  maim  and 
to  kill  and  to  ruin,  as  to  construct — a  labor  more 
difficult  beyond  compare — to  construct,  too,  all 
that  is  most  vital  and  permanent  in  the  heritage 
of  humanity.  Thus,  there  are  those  among  us 
who,  even  at  this  distant  date,  experience  the 
still  living  charm  of  Greek  art ;  or  enter  with 
fresh  emotion  into  the  sublimities  of  the  Jewish 
faith ;  or  recognize  in  the  daily  blessings  of  law 
and  order  the  near  presence  of  Rome's  universal 
sway.  Nay,  some  of  us  possess  inborn  affinities 
for  one  or  other  of  these  ancient  orders.  Not 
that  we  can  actually  be  Greeks  or  Jews  or  Ro- 
mans, but  our  spirits  answer  to  their  several 
ideals,  perceiving  that  there,  and  perhaps  only 
there,  lies  somethmg  for  the  realization  of  which 
it  is  worth  while  striving  in  our  lives.  **  We  are 
in  connection  with  the  whole  universe,  as  with 
the  future,  so  with  the  past.  It  depends  upon 
ourselves  entirely,  on  the  direction  we  take  and 
the  perseverance  we  show,  which  of  the  various 
influences  affect  us  most."  Accordingly,  it  is 
impossible  for  us  to  forego  the  study  of  these  old 
yet  ever  new  matters.  And  the  more  we  ponder 
them,  seeking  to  arrive  at  a  just  appreciation  of 


22  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

their  ultimate  meaning,  the  more  we  are  enabled 
to  see  what  exactly  they  were,  what  happened  to 
be  their  excellencies  and  their  limitations,  what, 
above  all,  we  owe  them  and  must  strive  to  ex- 
tract from  them.  Only  thus,  too,  can  we  un- 
derstand why  the  Christian  centuries  are  ever- 
more separated  from  the  Classical  and  Jewish  as 
by  a  mighty  chasm  fixed,  and  come  to  fathom  the  ^ 
height  and  depth  of  the  mystery  that  is  in 
Christ  Jesus.  For  it  is  not  His  mystery,  but  ours 
also.  The  atmosphere  of  our  lives  was  created 
by  Him,  far  more  completely  than  the  majority 
of  us  are  even  vaguely  aware ;  our  institutions 
have  been  moulded  by  His  spirit ;  our  most  ef- 
fective ideals  centre  in  Him ;  and  upon  His 
career  and  all  its  consequences  rests  our  hope  for 
eternity.  These  are  not  opinions,  but  facts 
capable  of  no  dispute  whatsoever,  simply  because 
they  are  historical,  and  have  been  becoming 
more  and  more  of  the  essence  of  history  for  nigh 
two  thousand  years.  Consequently,  no  Christian 
can  have  a  firmer  foundation  for  his  faith  than 
that  which  rests  immovable  upon  the  historical 
influence  issuing  from  the  life  of  Christ. 

The  events  that  at  length  called  imperatively 
for  this  influence,  the  nature  of  the  revolution 
that  rendered  it  paramount  and  permanent,  are 
now  to  pass  before  us.  Surely  no  more  impor- 
tant or  profoundly  attractive  study  could  be  un- 
dertaken !  Yet  its  very  importance  stands  in  the 
way  of  its  simplicity.  We  are  bound  to  confine 
ourselves  to  results  rather  than  to  processes.  For 
it  is  of  the  essence  of  the  matter  to  strip  off  the 
contingent,  the  momentary,  in  order  to  obtain 
clearer  glimpses  of  the  constitutive,  the  everlast- 
ing. Despite  this,  however,  the  work  is  well 
worth  doing,  because  only  by  undertaking  it  can 
a  man  hope  to  arrive  at  that  living  interest  which 


INTRODUCTORY  23 

alone  will  enable  him  to  arrive  at  a  vital  under- 
standing of  all  that  the  Master  accomplished. 

In  the  discussion  of  these  questions  it  is  neces- 
sary to  begin  with  the  Periclean  age  of  Greece. 
This  starting-point  justifies  itself,  for  there  man 
first  arrived  at  some  consciousness  of  his  own 
worth  ;  and,  before  he  had  apprehended  this,  the 
problems  which  imperatively  called  for  the  reply 
made  by  the  Christian  revelation  were  practically 
non-existent. 


CHAPTER  II 

SOCRATES   AS   A   MISSIONARY  OF  THE  HUMAN  SPIRIT 

"Know  thyself." 

Every  effort  to  understand  and  appreciate  the 
life-work  of  Socrates  is  foredoomed  to  failure  if 
it  be  not  accompanied  by  dismissal  of  the  habits 
of  thought  to  which  we  are  accustomed  and 
whereby  we  inevitably  judge  all  things.  Further, 
this  unmaking  of  our  common  experience  must 
needs  take  place  chiefly  in  relation  to  political  af- 
fairs. Socrates  was  a  missionary  to  a  certain 
people,  and  in  his  preaching — for  he  was  a 
preacher  as  much  as  a  philosopher — the  concep- 
tions that  ruled  Greek  society  are  traceable 
throughout,  exercising  paramount  formative  in- 
fluence. The  defects  and  the  excellencies,  like 
the  complete  import,  of  his  message  are  Hellenic 
and  Hellenic  only.  It  would  be  easy  to  con- 
demn his  morality  by  applying  Christian  stand- 
ards; ^  easy  to  place  him  on  a  parity  with  Christ, 
by  remembering  only  his  disadvantages  and  all 
that  he  accomplished  despite  them  ;  easy  to  read 
modern  speculative  notions  into  his  more  definite 
theorizings.  But  all  this  and  its  kind  must  be 
rigidly  eschewed  if  we  are  to  view  him  with  any 
hope  of  realizing  what  he  actually  was  and  did, 
of  re-living  in  our  own  thought  the  inner  work- 
ings that  led  to  his  wonderful  vision,  and  invested 
him  with  such  rare,  home-thrusting  authority. 

*Cf.  Plato's   Symposion,  22yy  Xenophon's   Metnorabilia 

iii.  II. 

24 


SOCRATES   AS   A   MISSIONARY  25 

What  sort  of  place,  then,  was  that  Athens 
whose  streets  he  roamed,  whose  youth  he  so  pro- 
foundly moved, ^  whose  leaders  were  his  intimates, 
whose  judges  he  fearlessly  faced,  and  where  he 
met  his  doom?  When,  employing  the  current 
phrase,  we  call  it  a  city,  our  associations  are  apt 
to  render  our  conception  of  it  wrong  or  distorted 
in  nearly  all  essential  particulars.  A  modern 
city,  such  as  New  York  or  Chicago,  San  Fran- 
cisco or  St.  Louis,  is,  first  and  foremost,  a  self- 
governing  municipality ;  its  concerns  and  pow- 
ers for  rule  are,  in  greater  part,  parochial — local, 
not  imperial.  Favorable  situation,  traditional 
callings,  or  similar  causes  have  aggregated  men 
in  it  for  the  purposes  of  commerce,  of  adminis- 
tration, of  legal  advice,  of  education.  Modern 
inventions  and  modern  discoveries  have  enabled 
them  best  to  exploit  certain  commodities  within 
its  compass.  Gas  and  electricity,  water  and 
tramways,  drainage,  street-cleansing,  galleries, 
museums,  parks  and  police  supply  the  leading 
affairs  for  which  the  municipality,  as  a  govern- 
ment, exists.  With  alliances,  peace  and  war,  the 
customs  and  the  civil  services,  and  other  national 
interests  it  does  not  deal.  To  put  it  briefly,  the 
city  is  a  secondary  political  association  ;  indeed, 
as  some  understand  the  term,  it  is  not  political 
at  all.  For  a  man's  real  citizenship  centres,  not 
so  much  in  his  town,  as  in  his  nationality,  of 
which  the  municipality  forms  a  larger  or  smaller, 
a  more  or  less  important  part.  Even  when  we 
heighten  the  colors  of  the  picture  and  say  that, 
in  proportion  to  population,  London  is  the  most 
important  city  belonging  to  any  contemporary 
nationality,  this  truth  is  in  no  degree  altered. 

I  Cf.  Plutarch's  Life  of  AlcibiadeSy  iv. ;  Plato's  Symposion^ 
201. 


26  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

For  London  is  not  England,  its  people  are  not 
the  English  nation.  Beyond  the  town  stands 
what  we  now  call  the  State.  But  even  this  hardly 
helps  us  here,  because  the  notion  of  the  state, 
entertained  in  son\e  vague  way  by  every  one,  is 
at  complete  odds  with  the  Greek  conception. 
The  ramifications  of  the  modern  state  are  so  ex- 
tended, its  complexity  is  so  inconceivably  intri- 
cate, and  its  functions  have  become  so  specialized 
that  the  society  often  seems,  in  our  eyes,  to  have 
got  the  better  of  its  constituent  members.  No 
private  citizen  to-day  would  be  such  a  fool  as  to 
proffer  his  opinion  on  the  proper  mode  of  design- 
ing an  ironclad,  he  would  not  be  so  blind  to  the 
interests  of  national  defence  as  to  suppose  that  a 
ship's  armor,  cannon,  and  chandlery  could  be 
most  satisfactorily  settled  at  the  polls.  Now,  we 
citizens  get  over  the  obvious  difficulties  here  en- 
tailed by  acquiescing  in  the  appointment  of 
skilled  officials  who  spend  their  lives  in  attending 
to  these  matters,  and  who  naturally  resent  undue 
interference  on  the  part  of  those  who  are  ulti- 
mately their  masters,  nay,  their  paymasters. 
This  process  extends  to  all  manner  of  specialized 
details,  and  tends  to  go  on  expanding  till  at 
length  we  come  to  regard  the  state  as  a  thing 
wherein  we  have  little  interest,  except  on  polling 
days,  and  to  which,  on  other  days,  we  must  for 
the  most  part  give  submission — a  submission 
sometimes  rendered  not  a  little  unpalatable  by 
"the  insolence  of  office."  In  this  regard  the 
modern  state  is  not  merely  separated  from  the  in- 
dividual, but  appears  to  stand  over  against,  if  not 
actually  to  thwart,  him  in  daily  business.  Our 
patriotism  is  for  our  country,  not  for  our  exec- 
utive ;  we  eminently  fail  to  associate  the  police- 
man with  any  of  our  ideals. 

Once  more,  such  is  the  division  just  indicated 


SOCRATES   AS   A   MISSIONARY  27 

that,  even  when  we  come  into  closer  relation 
with  the  state,  we  tend  to  confuse  it,  not  with 
the  whole  body  of  the  people,  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, with  certain  persons,  especially  with  prom- 
inent men  known  to  us  for  their  political  lean- 
ings. *' Cleveland"  stands  for  something  far 
more  definite  than  the  silent  officials  at  the  Trea- 
sury; "  McKinley "  looms  larger,  and  com- 
mands incomparably  profounder  regard  than  the 
permanent  Under-Secretary  of  a  Department. 
And  so,  such  is  the  paradox,  on  public  occasions 
we  hiss  the  names  of  men  who,  were  they  simple 
scholars  or  professors  of  physics,  we  should  pro- 
foundly respect,  never  dreaming  of  extending  to 
them  aught  but  the  courtesy  due  to  their  superior 
knowledge  and  ability.  Yet  we  hiss  these  very 
men,  though  they  be  our  fellow-citizens  who  are 
accomplishing  incomparably  more  for  the  com- 
monwealth than  ourselves,  because  we  link  them 
with  certain  doctrines  about  policy  which,  little 
as  we  may  be  entitled  to  an  opinion,  we  do  not 
approve.  In  other  words,  just  as  in  the  person 
of  the  tax-gatherer,  we  look  at  the  state  from  the 
outside,  and  suspiciously,  so  in  the  persons  of 
politicians  we  view  it  in  an  equally  external  man- 
ner, and  sometimes  with  positive  hate.  In  both 
cases,  the  distinction  between  the  state  and  the 
individual  is  emphasized,  doubtless  with  danger- 
ous results,  and  this  because  modern  conditions 
are  of  such  complex  character  as  to  make  Aris- 
totle's taking  in  of  the  whole  state  "at  a  single 
view"  quite  out  of  the  question.  Plainly,  this 
situation  must  reveal  excellencies,  perils,  and 
problems  of  its  own.  The  point  to  be  persistently 
remembered  is  that  they  are  wholly  diverse  from 
those  developed  in  ancient  Greece.  Our  city  is 
emphatically  not  a  new  Athens,  our  state  is  as 
emphatically  not  a  Hellenic  organization.     Man 


28  PREPARATION   FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

has  ceased  to  be  a  "political  animal,"  as  the 
Greeks  termed  him,  and  his  social  side  has 
thrown  out  thousands  of  new  filaments.  In  the 
nature  of  the  case  he  has  delegated  his  personal 
sovereign  privileges  to  those  whom  he  elects,  and 
to  those  whom  his  chosen  representatives  appoint, 
reserving  to  himself  little  more  than  the  right  to 
_  vote,  and  to  grumble  when  he  considers  that  this 
voting  has  not  transformed  the  world  sufficiently 
to  his  wishes.  Accordingly,  he  thinks  of  himself 
primarily  as  a  man,  only  secondarily  as  a  citizen. 
He  is  ever  insisting  on  his  rights,  he  needs  the 
assessment  paper  to  remind  him  of  his  duties, 
and  he  takes  small  trouble  to  conceal  his  dislike 
for  this  too  regular  memorial. 

The  divergence  between  the  Greek  and  the 
modern  state  might  be  conveyed  by  saying  that 
the  one  was  an  organism,  while  the  other  is  an 
organization.  Yet,  even  thus,  the  constituent 
material  differences  remain  to  be  filled  in.  And 
one  finds  it  hard,  very  hard,  to  realize  these  now, 
mainly  because  our  present  civic  situation  affords 
scarcely  any  point  of  departure,  much  less  any 
conspicuous  instance  of  parallelism.  If  we  could 
conceive  of  ourselves  as  at  once  electors,  mem- 
bers of  parliament,  departmental  officials,  and, 
when  our  turn  came  round,  policemen,  we  should 
be  in  a  fair  way  to  comprehend  something  of  the 
all-embracing  claims  and  opportunities  made  and 
offered  by  the  Greek  city-state.  The  occasional 
and  oft-resented  call  to  serve  on  a  jury  is,  per- 
haps, our  single  point  of  contact.  This  consti- 
tutes a  legitimate  claim  by  the  community  upon 
us.  Our  peers,  such  is  the  law,  must  be  judged 
by  their  peers,  of  whose  number  we  are.  Now, 
in  its  best  days — just  closing  in  Socrates'  time — 
this  body  politic,  an  organism  whereof  all  were 
equally  members  sharing  alike  duties  and  rights 


SOCRATES   AS   A   MISSIONARY  29 

yet  without  marked  consciousness  of  any  contrast 
between  them,  was  an  actually  realized  fact,  re- 
alized with  its  full  equipment  of  excellencies  and 
defects  in  the  common  life  of  the  men  of  the  day. 

Take  a  modern  nation ;  gather  into  one  of  its 
smaller  cities  all  that  is  representative  in  the  best 
sense  of  the  national  spirit — statesmen,  artists, 
poets,  soldiers,  thinkers,  scientific  workers,  and 
so  on ;  suppose  all  to  be,  by  the  mere  fact  of 
their  citizenship,  active  members  of  the  Common 
Council ;  imagine  them  all  equally,  and  with 
perfect  cheerfulness,  recipients  in  rotation  of  the 
public  offices  great  and  small ;  transform  the 
duties  of  the  chiefest  from  the  parochialisms  of 
aldermen  and  contractors  to  questions  of  high 
state  policy ;  infuse  all  with  the  incomparable 
pride  that  such  a  city  would  naturally  generate, 
and  furnish  them  with  cultivated  leisure  by  sup- 
plying a  slave  population  to  provide  the  means 
of  subsistence;  finally,  surround  them  with  all  that 
is  most  splendid  in  buildings,  statues,  and  artistic 
ornamentation,  suppose  the  mightiest  literary 
achievements  to  have  sprung  from  the  spirit  of 
their  community,  give  them  a  religion  that  is  the 
natural  halo  of  their  civic  life — present  them,  in 
short,  with  everything  that  makes  for  universal 
culture  and  tends  to  foster  a  justifiable  enthusiasm 
in  its  conquests,  and  you  will  have  conjured  up, 
at  least  in  external  shape,  something  like  the 
city-state  of  Socrates. 

Athens  was  the  Athenian's  country,  the  source 
of  his  most  elevating  traditions  ;  his  nation,  the 
seat  of  his  most  inspiriting  conceptions ;  his 
church,  the  guardian  of  his  finest  hopes.  From 
Athens  flowed  the  ideals  worth  living  for;  the 
opportunities  that,  just  because  he  was  her  citi- 
zen, rendered  him  the  highest  conceivable  type 
possible  for  man.     On  the  other  hand,  his  state 


30  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

claimed  his  time,  intelligence,  service — his  entire 
life  even — in  just  compensation  for  the  inesti- 
mable advantages  bestowed.  There  were  no  men 
then,  only  Athenians.  AVe  have,  therefore,  to 
reconstruct  in  imagination  a  comparatively  smalP 
and  comparatively  self-sufficing  city.  Under- 
neath a  brilliant  sky,  a  joyous  open-air  life  was 
possible,  and  it  was  surrounded  by  everything 
that  could  entrance  the  eye  and  elevate  the  spirit. 
Magnificent  temples  and  other  public  buildings 
abounded ;  statues  and  sculptures,  still  even  in 
their  melancholy  isolation  and  fragmentariness 
the  wonder  and  despair  of  the  world,  everywhere 
appeared,  not  merely  as  embellishments,  but 
rather  as  embodiments  of  the  living  genius  of  a 
living  people.  Soul-stirring  dramas  were  enacted 
in  the  wonderful  roofless  theatres;  poems,  per- 
fect masterpieces  in  their  own  field,  were  de- 
claimed before  the  whole  body  of  the  citizens, 
from  whose  inmost  spirit  they  had  distilled  the 
essential  flavor.  After  a  manner  which  we  can 
barely  conceive,  ideals  shone  forth  on  all  sides — 
ideals  proved  in  the  terrific  struggle  with  the  bar- 
barian, or  living  now  and  here  as  the  character- 
istic inspiration  of  the  community  gradually 
called  forth  into  ever  fresh  and  varying  expres- 
sion. Yet  again,  and  now  in  the  domain  of 
practical  politics,  democracy  had  achieved  such 
realization  as  it  never  had  before  nor  is  likely 
ever  to  see  again.  The  delegation  of  executive 
and  legislative  power  to  popularly  elected  repre- 
sentatives which  we  of  to-day  term  democratic 
government,  was  completely  unknown.  The 
people  did  not  simply  vote  at  greater  or  lesser  in- 

1  The  most  reliable  authorities  infer  that  the  adult  pop- 
ulation of  free  citizens  at  this  time  was  from  30,000  to 
35,000. 


SOCRATES   AS   A   MISSIONARY  3 1 

tervals,  they  actually  governed  in  their  own  per- 
sons. All  could  debate  the  chief  questions  of 
state,  all  would  undoubtedly  be  called  at  some 
time  or  other  to  serve  as  public  officials.  We  are 
aware  that,  like  his  neighbors,  Socrates  acted  in 
such  capacities. 

But  some  one  may  say,  *MVhy,  this  was  a 
socialistic  state."  The  answer  is,  Yes  and  No. 
It  was  socialistic  in  so  far  as  the  city  demanded 
service  from  each  and  all,  and  prescribed  the  rel- 
ative duties.  But  these  ministerial  functions 
were  regarded  as  a  hallowed  trust.  The  citizen 
never  dreamed  of  any  advantage  to  accrue  to 
him  as  an  individual  apart  from  the  common 
weal.  Yet,  it  was  not  socialistic  in  the  sense  of 
embodying  designs  for  alteration  of  the  machin- 
ery of  government  so  as  to  fill  empty  bellies  or 
to  find  some  little  leisure  for  ''sweated"  work- 
ers. Its  horizon  was  never  bounded  by  such 
material  ends,  because  the  whole  system  stood 
rooted  in  a  national  growth,  wherein  individual 
lives  found  a  place  ready  for  them,  just  as 
naturally  as  a  limb,  an  eye,  or  a  tooth.  Herein 
lay  its  redemption  from  that  "  middlingness," 
that  satisfaction  with  catering  for  lower  aims, 
which  appears  as  a  persistent  feature  in  many 
recent  schemes.  For,  although  the  city  took  a 
man's  life,  it  rendered  him  back  the  sole  con- 
ditions under  which  he  could  achieve  the  most 
admirably  balanced  humanity.  Each  had  his 
freedom,  because  all  were  quick  to  perceive  that 
only  on  the  excellence  of  its  constituent  mem- 
bers can  a  state  be  surely  based. ^  The  result  was 
a  galaxy  of  men  of  genius  hardly  to  be  paralleled 
in  later  times,  except  by  the  assembled  talent  of 

1  Cf.  Demosthenes,  Aristogeit.  xvii.  ;  Thucydides,  ii, 
^7  ;  Euripides,  Medea,  825. 


32  PREPARATION   FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

the  nations  representing  whole  periods,  never  to 
be  approached  by  any  city,  not  even  by  Rome 
with  a  universe  at  her  back.  Poets  and  states- 
men, sculptors,  painters  and  musicians,  orators 
and  philosophers,  jostle  one  another  in  a  bewilder- 
ment of  ability.  So  closely  knit  is  the  organism 
that  each  member  can,  after  a  fashion,  by  taking 
thought,  add  a  cubit  to  his  stature.  He  stands 
forth  magnified  by  the  surrounding  atmosphere 
of  his  community, — and  this  altogether  without 
meretricious  assistance.  The  universal  spirit  in- 
carnates itself  in  the  individuals,  and  they,  in 
turn,  are  capable  of  being  so  colossal  just  on  ac- 
count of  the  spell  that  society  exercises  over 
them.  In  losing  themselves  they  find  surest 
personal  immortality.  For  a  few  brief  years  this 
marvellous  political  ideal,  inspired  by  Greek 
sanity  and  moderation,  was  actual  in  Athens. 
Toward  the  close  of  that  golden  age,  when  the 
shadows  of  evening  were  creeping  up  the  Long 
Walls,  Socrates  began  to  think  and  to  utter  his 
thoughts. 

It  has  been  said  of  him  that  he  was  the  first  of 
the  Greeks  who  was  not  wholly  Greek,  and  this 
statement  embodies  a  profound  truth.  A  people, 
and  especially  a  people  so  highly  organized  as  to 
be  fittingly  likened  to  a  living  thing,  remains  in 
the  flower  of  its  self-expression  only  so  long  as  it 
refrains  from  reflecting  upon  its  own  image,  from 
criticising  itself  into  something  more  perfect — 
so  long  as  no  ideal  utterly  beyond  its  conditions 
and  not  to  be  realized  in  them,  creates  disturb- 
ance. For  a  fortunate  period,  unity  with  nature, 
and  a  homelike  joy  in  the  beautiful,  mark  Greek 
character.  The  early  thinkers  of  the  race  were 
philosophers  only  in  the  limited  sense  in  which 
we  still  apply  the  name  to  those  who  pursue  pure 
science.     Their   desire   was   to   discern  the  un- 


SOCRATES    AS   A   MISSIONARY  33 

changing,  the  abiding,  not  in  humanity,  but  in 
those  ever  shifting  material  phenomena  that 
furnish  the  most  striking  accompaniments  of  life. 
Deep  questions  about  conduct,  about  the  nature 
of  mind,  about  God  and  religion  had  not  oc- 
curred to  them.  They  are  astonishingly  non- 
moral  ;  and  this  is  but  the  counterpart  of  the 
artistic  bent  of  tlieir  nation's  genius.  So  far 
they  were  contented  with  life,  for  no  break  be- 
tween man  as  he  is  and  man  as  he  ought  to  be 
had  yet  accentuated  itself.     The 

Little  lift  within  the  lute, 
That  by  and  by  will  make  the  music  mute, 
And  ever  widening  slowly  silence  all, 

appeared  first  to  Socrates,  and,  for  the  most  part, 
he  was  unconscious  of  the  issues  wherewith  his 
discovery  was  fraught.  Looking  at  his  time 
through  the  perspective  of  centuries  this  is  now 
plain  to  us,  and  we  can  also  focus  the  causes  that 
elicited  his  epoch-making  message,  "  Know  thy- 
self." 

Three  leading  changes  may  be  specified  as  em- 
bodying the  immediate  influences  whereto  Soc- 
rates responded.  To  produce  a  complete 
picture,  other  and  less  conspicuous  movements 
would  certainly  fall  to  be  considered.  But  these, 
once  more,  affiliate  themselves  upon  the  main 
tendencies,  to  which  we  now  turn  for  a  little. 

(i)  The  old  Greek  religion,  as  represented 
most  picturesquely  in  Homer,  was  an  imaginative 
rather  than  an  ethical  faith.  The  Hellenes,  be- 
ing at  one  with  the  world  and  with  themselves, 
were  fain  to  rest  satisfied  with  a  religion  based 
upon  personification.  They  read  themselves  at 
once  into  and  out  of  the  varied  natural  processes. 
Consequently,    they   worshipped   gods   who   ap- 


34  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

peared,  not  as  abstract  qualities  like  the  old 
Roman  deities,  but  as  well-defined  people  who, 
in  the  main,  evinced  in  ideal  perfection  traits 
that  the  Greeks  freely  recognized  for  their  own. 
Rooted  at  first  in  the  nature-worship  common  to 
the  Aryan  stock,^  religion  gradually  came  to  be 
more  and  more  associated  with  human  qualities. 
The  gods  of  Olympos,  as  the  legend  runs,  drove 
out  the  elder  and  less  humane  deities  who  begat 
them.  By  an  imaginative  flight,  effortless  because 
unconscious,  the  Hellenic  gods  assumed  clearly 
marked  individual  characteristics  for  the  Greek 
genius.  They  could  be  represented,  and  were,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  artistically  bodied  forth,  with  as 
much  precision  as  men.  It  was  not  necessary  to 
torture  stone  into  all  kinds  of  horrible  and 
grotesque  shapes  in  order  to  symbolize  them. 
Nay,  symbolism  was  not  required,  because  Zeus, 
Athene,  and  the  rest  had  lineaments  as  familiar 
as  those  of  Pericles  or  Phryne.  In  short,  nature - 
worship  deepened  in  inwardness  as  it  lost  in 
multiplicity  of  material  manifestation.  Psycho- 
logical qualities  replaced  physical  events.  Valor 
and  wisdom  and  love  stood  where  lightning  and 
rain  and  germination  had  been.  The  gods  came 
to  be  with  man,  not  against  him. 

But,  unfortunately,  polytheism,  or  the  worship 
of  many  deities,  each  Ihjiited  in  a  specific  way, 
can  never  be  altered  so  as  to  bear  the  weight  of 
moral  attribution  which  is  in  its  very  essence  in- 
finite. At  first  the  Greeks  did  not  perceive  this, 
but  it  was  inevitable  that  the  perception  should 
awaken  sooner  or  later.  What  heralded  its  ap- 
pearance was,  of  course,  direct  reflection  upon 
the  conditions  out  of  which  moral  qualities  grow. 
And  these  ''second  thoughts"  unavoidably  re- 

» Cf.  Homer's  Odyssey,  v.  282. 


SOCRATES    AS    A    MISSIONARY  35 

suited  in  a  tendency  to  disparage  the  traditional 
deities.  For  men  came  to  observe,  first,  that  they 
were  as  good  as  their  gods,^  and  then  they 
vaguely  felt  the  presence  of  a  spark  within  their 
clod  revealing  possibilities  of  infinitely  greater 
import  than  any  the  gods  had  to  show.  This 
break  with  the  ancient  faith  followed  what  we 
should  now  deem  a  strange  path.  Art  wrought 
its  beginnings.  The  Greek  artistic  genius  im- 
mortalized itself  in  two  principal  achievements — 
sculpture  and  poetry.  Sculpture  was  inspired 
by,  and,  one  might  even  say,  acted  in  the  interest 
of,  the  Olympian  pantheon.  But  Poetry,  par- 
ticularly in  the  tragedies  of  ^schylus^  and 
Sophocles,  departed  from  the  gods  as  persons, 
and  devoted  itself  to  the  setting,  development, 
and  resolution  of  moral  problems — of  problems 
implied  in  the  very  existence  of  the  qualities 
wherewith  the  Greek  had  tmcoiisciotisly  come  to 
gift  his  deities.  By  their  agency  the  Hellenic 
mind  was  brought  into  direct  contact  with  ethical 
questions,  and,  by  reason  of  the  matchless  man- 
ner in  which  they  were  portrayed,  took  breath- 
less interest  in  their  presentation.  So  opened  the 
course  of  reflection  that  ultimately  undermined 
the  authority  even  of  the  Thunder-bearer,  even 
of  the  Guardian  of  the  Mother-city.  When  Soc- 
rates lived,  the  effects  of  this  process  were 
already  keenly  felt,  especially  by  those  master 
minds  among  whom  he  was  so  conspicuous. 

(2)  For  about  two  centuries  prior  to  Socrates, 
Greek  thinkers  illustrated  the  same  unconscious- 
ness in  regard  to  ethical  questions,  and  the  same 
sense  of  unity  with  the  outer  world  as  their  na- 


»  Cf.  Euripides,  Ion,  885. 

«  Cf.,  for  example,  /Eschylus,  EumenideSy  297  ;  and  Aga- 
memnon^  367. 


36  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

tion  evinced  in  the  realm  of  religion.  It  never 
occurred  to  them  to  investigate  systematically  the 
nature  of  man  as  a  moral  being,  to  inquire  into 
the  office  and  operation  of  the  mental  powers,  or 
to  ask  how  the  conviction  that  knowledge  is  true 
comes  to  be  generated.  Their  thought  was  di- 
rected in  every  case  to  what  is  now  usually  called 
the  problem  of  substance.  That  is  to  say,  they 
sought  to  discover  the  one  unchanging  thing 
that,  despite  the  endless  passing  events  of  the 
physical  world — summer  and  winter,  day  and 
night,  seed-time  and  harvest — remains  unaltered 
and  unaffected.  This  attracted  them  because, 
plainly,  from  it  the  visible  world  must  proceed, 
and  thereto  it  must  at  the  last  return.  Now  a 
problem  such  as  this  involves  several  assumptions 
which,  without  satisfactory  investigation,  are 
taken  for  true.  It  must  be  assumed,  for  example, 
that  such  a  substance  does  actually  exist  some- 
where ;  that  it  lies  outside  of  and  in  separation 
from  the  mind  ;  and  that,  notwithstanding  this 
division,  the  mind  is  somehow  or  other  able  to 
attain  true  knowledge  of  it.  But,  unfortunately, 
all  this  is  tantamount  to  supposing  that  the  most 
fundamental  questions  of  philosophy  are  non- 
sensical. And  such  was  precisely  the  situation 
of  the  Greek  physical  philosophers  as  they  are 
called.  The  contrast,  much  less  the  antagonism, 
between  the  human  mind  and  the  material  world 
had  never  struck  them,  they  were  so  much  at 
home  on  the  earth.  The  possibility  of  a  conflict 
between  the  two  was  as  unheard  of  as  the  possi- 
bility that  the  gods  cannot  be  immortal  men  and 
still  remain  gods.  Upon  the  development  of  this 
philosophical  phase  we  cannot  enter  here.  It 
must  suffice  to  indicate  the  results  reached  by  the 
time  of  Socrates.  Two  conclusions — a  positive 
and  a  negative — had  emerged.     If  substance — 


SOCRATES    AS    A    MISSIONARY  37 

the  one  and  unchangeable — be  at  the  back  of  all 
things,  it  cannot  be  simply  one.  The  different 
phenomena  wherein  the  world  abounds  could  not 
be  produced  by  any  such  agency.  Therefore, 
there  must  be  an  infinite  number  of  substances 
(atoms)  identical  in  their  constituent  qualities 
which,  in  some  way,  happen  to  come  together  so 
as  to  frame  the  world  revealed  to  us  by  our  senses. 
In  other  words,  the  universe  is  ultimately,  not 
one,  but  many.  On  the  negative  side  a  very 
curious  inference  had  been  drawn.  It  had  been 
argued  by  one  school  that  our  senses  deceive  us^ 
when  they  inform  us  that  the  universe  is  stable 
and  unchanging.  With  equal  force  and  show  of 
evidence,  it  had  been  urged  by  other  thinkers 
that  our  senses  deceive  us,  when  they  lead  us  to 
believe  that  nothing  but  change  is  constantly  tak- 
ing place  in  the  physical  world.  Atomism,  or 
the  reality  of  many  individual  things,  was  the 
positive  result;  a  common  conviction  that  the 
senses  are  deceptive,  the  negative.  Both  were 
conclusions  precipitated  from  a  philosophical  in- 
quiry into  which  neither  the  problems  of  mental 
equipment  nor  of  moral  aspiration  had  effectively 
entered. 

(3)  New  dilificulties  thus  growing  out  of  old 
beliefs,  and  for  this  very  reason  apparently  de- 
manding a  solution  in  antagonism  with  them,  in- 
variably tend  to  foster  scepticism.  This  tendency 
was  at  flood-tide  when  Socrates  lived.  A  fresh 
group  of  thinkers,  called  Sophists,  had  arisen 
who  undertook  to  furnish  the  quick,  yet  puzzled 
Greek  with  some  one  surety  amid  his  increasing 
doubts,  ^schylus  and  Sophocles  had  traveled 
beyond  the  traditional  conceptions  of  the  gods ; 
Parmenides  and  Heracleitus,  while  at  odds  on 
positive  theory,  were  equally  agreed  that  the 
senses   are  deceptive — and   the   senses  were  as- 


38  PREPARATION   FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

sumed  to  furnish  the  solid  material  of  knowl- 
edge. The  Sophists  seized  upon  these  points 
and,  for  a  moment,  seemed  likely  to  sway  Greek 
thought.  Their  argument  ran  :  In  the  religious 
sphere  and  in  that  of  our  knowledge  of  things 
there  is  no  longer  any  certainty.  Nevertheless, 
an  easy  way  of  deliverance  lies  open.  There  is 
no  reason  whatever  why  a  man  should  question 
his  own  opinions.  If  ''black"  seem  "white" 
to  him,  "  white  "  let  it  be,  despite  all  protests  on 
the  part  of  his  neighbors.  One  man's  opinion, 
if  the  senses  do  deceive,  is  quite  as  good  as  that 
of  another.  Individual  bias  is  the  sole  and 
ultimate  test,  seeing  that  things  are  appearances 
and  without  fixed  reality.  Here  the  positive  re- 
sult of  atomism  coincides  with  the  negative  one 
of  scepticism.  The  individual  is  the  real,  just  as 
his  opinion  is  the  truth. 

Any  one  can  perceive  that  a  doctrine  of  this 
kind — and  its  professors — would  never  have  ac- 
quired influence  but  for  some  conspiring  causes. 
And  so  it  was  with  the  Sophists.  History  be- 
came their  ally.  From  a  small,  self-contained 
city-state,  Athens  had  suddenly  risen  to  be  the 
first  power  in  the  Eastern  world.  Head  of 
Greece  in  the  momentous  struggle  with  Persia, 
she  had  come  by  a  great  reward.  Her  sovereign 
people  ceased  to  be  citizens  and  became  ad- 
ministrators of  semi-imperial  affairs.  Conse- 
quently success  in  political  life  loomed  larger 
than  ever,  its  opportunities  were  so  surpass- 
ingly extended.  The  Sophists  acquired  wealth, 
influence,  and  fame,  in  the  first  place,  because 
they  taught  the  Greek  youth  those  arts  of 
rhetorical  display  best  fitted  to  move  a  popular 
assembly.  The  inevitable  result  was  that  "to 
expose  fallacy  or  inconsistency  was  found  to  be 
both  an  easier  process  and  a  more  appreciable 


SOCRATES    AS    A    MISSIONARY  39 

display  of  ingenuity,  than  the  discovery  and  es- 
tablishment of  truth  in  such  a  way  as  to  command 
assent."  The  old  philosophy  was  eclipsed,  like 
the  old  reverence,  by  the  parade  of  a  wisdom 
which,  resting  upon  mere  statement  and  backed 
only  by  skilled  special  pleading,  recommended, 
itself  by  its  simplicity  of  attainment.  And  with 
these  displays  of  sophistry  Socrates  was  con-| 
temporary. 

He  thus  appeared  at  a  crisis  in  the  history  of 
the  Greeks.  Religion  happened  to  be  too  ma- 
terialized in  its  origins  to  include  moral  concep- 
tions. Philosophy  could  furnish  no  explanation 
of  the  unity  of  the  world.  The  subordination  of 
the  individual  to  the  state  had  turned  back  the 
tide  of  Persian  conquest,  and  each  citizen,  for- 
getful of  the  community,  sought  his  share  of  the 
spoil. ^  In  short,  the  organism  of  Greek  society 
was  beginning  to  break  up;  changes  had  long  been 
in  rapid  process  that  could  not  but  end  in  a  new 
contrast.  The  individual  citizen  was  tardily  be- 
ginning to  criticise  the  conditions  of  his  citizen- 
ship, and  so  the  perception  that  he  was  a  man  be- 
gan to  disturb  him.  Socrates  is  the  interpreter 
of  this  new  and  quite  unfamiliar  sense  of  in- 
dividuality. He  is  "  the  first  of  the  Greeks 
who  was  not  wholly  Greek,"  because  he  is  the 
earliest  missionary  who  preached  its  own  infinite 
value  to  the  human  soul.  He  emerged  in  the 
nick  of  time  to  find  definite  expression  for  a  revo- 
lutionary perception  that  was  vaguely  formulating 
itself  in  the  minds  of  his  fellow-citizens.  Like 
most  prophets,  he  possessed  a  gospel,  and  for  it 
met  the  martyr's  death — wrought  execution  upon 
himself,  because  to  have  lived  for  his  ideal  fur- 
nished all  the  fulness  that  life  could  afford,  to 

»  Cf.  Thucydides,  iii.  82. 


40  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

forego  it  implied  a  death  infinitely  more  terrible 
than  physical  dissolution.  The  man,  his  mes- 
sage, and  his  way  of  proclaiming  it  together  con- 
stitute Socrates'  significance,  not  only  for  his 
contemporaries,  but  also  for  universal  history,  in 
which  he  stands  forth  one  of  the  most  notable 

!  and  pathetic  figures. 

■  The  life-work  of  Socrates  was  to  turn  investi- 
gation from  matter  to  man,  to  deflect  interest 
from  the  foreign  order  of  outer  things  to  the  in- 
ner realm  of  regnant  personality.  And  to  ac- 
complish this  successfully,  he  had  to  prove  by 
his  own  career  that  the  life  is  more  than  meat, 
the  body  than  raiment.  In  an  age  of  scepticism, 
he  came  incarnating  a  permanent  belief  in  the 
ultimate  reality  of  the  human  spirit,  and  justify- 
ing his  ideal  by  showing  in  common  life  that 
richness  of  character  is  the  only  wealth  worth 
winning.  His  biographer  tells  us:  *' He  disci- 
plined his  mind  and  body  by  such  a  course  of 
life  that  he  who  should  adopt  a  similar  one  would, 
if  no  supernatural  influence  prevented,  live  in 
good  spirits  and  uninterrupted  health  ;  nor  would 
he  ever  be  in  want  of  the  necessary  expenses  for 
it.     So  frugal  was  he,  that  I  do  not  know  whether 

'  any  one  could  earn  so  little  by  the  labor  of  his 
hands  as  not  to  procure  sufficient  to  have  satisfied 
Socrates."  The  enthusiasm  and  curiosity  excited 
by  his  unique  figure,^  as  well  as  the  magnetic  at- 
traction he  is  known  to  have  had,  point  to  a 
striking  difference  between  him  and  other  con- 
temporary teachers.  In  many  respects  he  was 
not  unlike  the  Sophists,  and  we  are  aware  that 
some  few  classed  him  with  them.  He  shared 
with  them  the  independent  spirit  of  free  and  fear- 
less inquiry,  though  directing  it  to  wholly  diverse 
ends.     After  their  fashion,  he  was  accustomed  to 

iCf.  Plato's  Symposion,  22ib. 


SOCRATES   AS   A   MISSIONARY  4 1 

converse  in  market-place,  gymnasia/  and  at  the 
social  board,  and  to  debate,  not  so  much  high 
and  remote  themes,  as  the  familiar  incidents  of 
daily  life.  But  being  in  his  own  estimation  no 
more  than  a  seeker  after  truth,  he  had  no  pupils ; 
he  simply  talked  with  intimates,  friends,  and 
chance  acquaintances.  The  constructive  lessons 
of  his  discussions,  the  simplicity  of  his  habits, 
and  his  consistent  refusal  to  receive  hire  for  his 
services,  all  went  to  prove  that  he  was  no  Sophist, 
but  a  man  eager  to  disclose  a  higher  interpreta- 
tion of  life — one  that  could  by  no  means  be  esti- 
mated in  terms  of  gold  and  silver.  For  exam- 
ple, he  enters  into  conversation  with  a  typical 
Athenian  coxcomb,  by  name  Euthydemus.  This 
youth  "had  collected  many  writings  of  the  most 
celebrated  poets  and  Sophists,  and  imagined  that 
by  this  means  he  was  outstripping  his  contempo- 
raries in  accomplishments."  He  is  an  excellent 
representative  of  the  current  sophistic  tendencies. 
For  he  had  **  never  learned  anything  of  any  per- 
son " — this  was  not  possible  if  for  each  man,  as 
the  Sophists  taught  (in  strange  contradiction  of 
their  theory),  his  own  opinions  were  final.  Nev- 
ertheless, he  is  ''willing  to  offer  such  advice  as 
may  occur  to  him  without  premeditation."  A  little 
intercourse  with  Socrates  transforms  him  and, 
presently,  he  is  forced  to  declare,  "I  no  longer 
put  confidence  in  the  answers  which  I  give ;  for 
all  that  I  said  before  appears  to  me  now  to  be 
quite  different  from  what  I  then  thought."  Soc- 
rates employs  the  Sophists'  own  weapons  to  com- 
pass their  defeat.  Yet  he  does  not  rest  satisfied 
with  a  barren  victory  in  mere  wordy  warfare. 
This  same  Euthydemus  constantly  associates  with 
him;  and,  as  Xenophon  tells  us,  "when  Soc- 
rates saw  that  he  was  thus  disposed,  he  no  longer 
1  Cf.  Plato's  Lysis,  2o6e. 


42  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

puzzled  him  with  questions,  but  explained  to  him, 
in  the  simplest  and  clearest  manner,  what  he 
thought  that  he  ought  to  know,  and  what  it 
would  be  best  for  him  to  study."  Thus,  there 
was  a  consistent  method  in  what  must  have  seemed 
to  many  of  his  fellow-citizens  Socrates'  peculiari- 
ties. He  had  a  purpose,  and  to  achieve  this  was 
his  mission.  He  drew  inspiration  from  a  life- 
long desire  to  arrive  at  clear  notions  concerning 
self  and  the  meaning  of  man's  life.  He  possessed 
the  most  solemn  conviction,  the  most  serious  be- 
lief, that  such  conclusions  were  both  possible  and 
imperatively  necessary.  His  it  was  to  have  dis- 
cerned the  signs  of  the  times.  The  indispensa- 
ble need  for  a  reformation  of  human  knowledge 
regarding  moral  and  religious  questions  pressed 
upon  him  in  some  sort  as  upon  Jesus.  Yet  he 
labored  under  limitations.  He  accepted  the  self- 
opinionated  individual  of  the  Sophists — the  social 
atom — but  he  could  not  stop  here.  His  it  was 
to  arouse  this  personage  to  a  perception  of  his  ob- 
ligations to  other  minds  in  thought,  and  to  other 
persons  in  society.  To  this  end,  it  was  neces- 
sary to  bring  him  to  his  senses  so  to  speak,  to 
convince  him  irresistibly  that,  at  every  turn,  he 
leaned  upon  his  fellow-men.  By  displaying  the 
implications  of  the  simplest  judgments,  and  the 
most  ordinary  acts,  Socrates  proved  that  thought 
is  an  endowment  of  all  men — that  it  is  indigenous 
to  human  nature;  he  also  indicated  that  the  most 
commonplace  deeds  could  not  take  place  unless 
men  were  banded  together  in  a  social  pact.  So 
he  brought  about  a  reconstruction  of  knowledge 
alike  in  regard  to  thought  and  to  virtue.  A  man 
must  know  the  implications  of  living  ere  he  can 
be  virtuous.  Or,  as  it  is  put  in  one  of  the  most 
famous  Socratic  phrases,  ''an  unexamined  life  is 
not   worth   living."     Knowledge   of  self  is  the 


SOCRATES    AS    A   MISSIONARY  43 

cardinal  condition  of  bettering  life,  of  putting  a 
man  in  a  position  to  fulfil  more  efficiently  his 
duties  to  the  state  and  to  himself  as  a  rational 
being.  One  cannot  guess  at  what  he  is  most  fit- 
ted to  do,  he  must  know ;  and  to  begin  to  know 
he  must  first  arrive  at  a  salutary  conviction  of  his 
present  ignorance.  "  For  himself,"  as  Xenophon 
says,  **he  would  hold  discourse  from  time  to 
time,  on  what  concerned  mankind,  considering 
.  .  .  what  was  just,  what  unjust  .  .  .  what  a 
state  was,  and  what  the  character  of  a  statesman  ; 
what  was  the  nature  of  government  over  men, 
and  the  qualities  of  one  skilled  in  governing 
them ;  and  touching  on  other  subjects,  with 
which  he  thought  that  those  zvho  were  acquaititcd 
were  mefi  of  worth  aiid  estimation,  but  that  those 
who  were  ignorant  of  them  might  justly  be  deemed 
no  better  than  slaves.'^  Man's  knowledge  of  his 
own  true  nature  alone  insures  that  he  will  put  it 
to  its  proper  uses  in  life.  For  all  life  is  moral 
life.  It  originates  in  the  individual,  yet  it  ex- 
pands in  him  only  in  so  far  as  he  finds  oppor- 
tunity of  associating  himself  with  others.  The 
deep-seated  conviction  that  ''virtue  is  knowl- 
edge" constitutes  the  kernel  of  the  Socratic  gos- 
pel. 

The  "  Socratic  gospel,"  be  it  remembered,  not 
"the  Gospel."  For  Socrates  was  hardly  more 
emancipated  than  other  Greeks  from  the  limita- 
tions imposed  by  that  city-state  we  have  tried  to 
picture.  He  displayed  his  own  discernment,  and 
so  was  a  creator,  but  he  did  not  create  out  of 
nothing.  The  end  whereto  he  lived  was  clear  to 
him;  the  means  whereby  he  moved  toward  it  he 
had  of  his  people  and  age.  Accordingly,  while 
Greek  civilization  dated  its  perception  of  the 
moral  value  of  the  individual  man  from  him,  his 
estimate  of  this  worth  was  restricted  by  the  defi- 


44  PREPARATION   FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

nite  horizon  of  his  own  experience,  by  the  fact 
that  he  passed  his  life  in  the  medium  of  a  highly 
specialized  society  ruled  by  an  already  existing 
ethical  standard  of  its  own.  From  the  very  re- 
straints to  which  he  found  himself  subject  he  de- 
rived his  expansive  force.  Let  us  look  at  these 
disadvantages  for  a  moment. 

To  begin  with,  a  virtue  that  consists  in  knowl- 
edge is  plainly  the  luxury  of  a  few.  It  was 
formulated  after  consideration  of  the  favored 
Greek  citizen,  and  was  minted  specially  for  his 
use.  Intellectualism  is  its  vice.  The  unculti- 
vated, the  stupid,  the  immature,  the  preoccupied 
have  no  lot  or  part  in  it.  Barbarians,  women, 
children,  and  slaves  cannot  be  virtuous  from  the 
nature  of  their  situation.  They  do  not  enjoy  the 
requisite  opportunities.  If  ihey  happen  to  be 
virtuous,  it  is  in  the  midst  of  their  ignorance, 
and  so  their  very  virtue  comes  to  be  a  species  of 
vice ;  their  lives  are  morally  worthless,  because 
*'  unexamined."  All  that  large  class  whose  moral- 
ity is  conventional,  or  who  so  far  act  at  hap- 
hazard, must  be  ticketed  bad,  whatever  there  ex- 
cellencies. Calculation,  proceeding  from  a  ra- 
tional view  of  circumstances,  forms  the  seed-plot 
of  virtue.  All  that  lies  without  its  limits  can 
produce  the  good  only  by  accident.  Socrates,  in 
short,  made  the  immortal  discovery  that  the  value 
of  human  life,  by  reason  of  its  very  humanity,  is 
the  motive  force  of  ethical  action.  He  did  not 
see  that,  on  this  basis,  every  man's  life  is  equally 
valuable,  for,  being  limited  by  Greek  traditions, 
he  still  supposed  that  the  stature  of  manhood 
which  could  rise  to  the  moral  level  depended  on 
conditions  altogether  independent  of  the  individ- 
ual. As  his  social  materials  were  circumscribed, 
so  his  ideal  of  the  possibilities  of  good  living  was 
cramped.     He  would  not  have  been  able  to  at- 


SOCRATES    AS    A   MISSIONARY  45 

tach  any  .meaning  to  the  declaration,  "I  came 
not  to  call  the  righteous  but  sinners  to  repent- 
ance." 

And  if  he  were  thus  restricted  theoretically,  he 
was  not  less  bound  practically.  His  whole  career 
was  of  and  for  Athens.  The  knowledge  which  is 
virtue  cannot  outstrip  the  gifts  of  the  gods  to 
men.  What  they  have  bestowed  must  be  thor- 
oughly sifted  and  searched.  Accordingly,  the 
"  good  "  culminates  in  right  conduct  as  ruled  by 
opportunity  in  social  life.  The  city  state  supplies 
the  accordant  conditions.  The  transformed 
character,  the  converted  man,  as  the  Christian 
terms  him,  could  not  then  exist.  Socrates  was 
representative  of  all  that  to  this  hour  remains 
typically  valuable  in  Greek  civilization.  He  was 
the  artistic  moralist,  the  teacher  who  perceived 
that  an  essential  portion  of  moral  greatness  con- 
sists in  putting  out  to  usury  the  talents  that  man 
has.  He  makes  no  attempt  to  get  away  from  life, 
like  the  Indian  ascetic ;  nor,  at  the  other  pole, 
does  he  put  forth  any  effort  to  renew  life — to 
render  it  subservient  to  a  fresh  and  infinitely 
higher  purpose — like  an  apostle.  He  simply  in- 
culcates use  of  it  in  wisdom,  in  well  weighed  cir- 
cumspection with  regard  to  the  circumstances 
amid  which  it  is  obviously  placed.  In  this  he  is 
characteristically  limited,  and  the  practical  re- 
striction is  typically  Greek.  The  idea  of  sin  had 
not  then  laid  hold  upon  the  conscience.  Moral 
responsibility  is  not  a  man's  obligation  to  his 
God — something  infinite  ;  but  the  duty  of  the 
Greek  citizen,  seeing  that  he  is  such,  to  do  his 
best  according  as  the  laws  and  the  interests  of  his 
community,  which  is  finite,  may  determine. 
Morality  thus  centres  in  knowing  what  life  is, 
and  in  accepting  its  conditions  as  material  from 
which  an  excellent  result  may  be  wrought.     Cul- 


46  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

ture,  moral  culture,  must  be  possible  for  every 
Greek,  because  the  opportunities  are  there  if  he 
will  but  recognize  them  and  learn  how  to  employ 
them.  The  Socratic  teaching,  therefore,  partakes 
in  the  nature  of  art,  but  of  an  art  of  life.  Knowl- 
edge, the  result  of  instruction,  is  indispensable, 
because  it  keeps  men  from  ruining  excellent  ma- 
terial through  preventable  ignorance.  It  is  this 
linking  of  moral  capacity  with  opportunity  that 
so  puzzles  the  Christian.  Nevertheless,  the  free- 
dom of  the  individual  to  mould  the  formless  mass 
of  his  own  being — the  Socratic  master-thought — 
is  that  apart  from  which  all  morality  whatsoever 
would  be  impossible.  To  enunciate  this  freedom 
was  Socrates'  mission  ;  for  it  he  died,  and  in  dy- 
ing gained  immortality.  For  here  *'  he  being 
dead  yet  speaketh."  Conscious  morality  in  the 
ancient  classical  world  begins  with  him,  because 
he  is  the  first  to  substitute  the  authority  of  the 
individual  for  that  of  the  state.  In  his  speech 
before  his  judges,  he  enunciated  a  new  principle 
destined  to  affect  the  old  world  with  increasing 
disquiet,  to  trouble  it  by  calling  up  endless  prob- 
lems, and  finally,  to  convict  it  of  moral  impo- 
tence. He  originated  a  need  that  the  resources 
of  classical  civilization  could  not  meet.  For  the 
Christian  alone  can  fully  respond  to  the  prophetic 
note  struck  in  those  words:  ''I  then  showed, 
not  in  word  only,  but  in  deed,  that,  if  I  may  be 
allowed  to  use  such  an  expression,  I  cared  not  a 
straw  for  death,  and  that  my  only  fear  was  the 
fear  of  doing  an  unrighteous  or  unholy  thing." 
So  Socrates  shifted  the  centre  of  the  ancient 
order  from  external  force  and  conformity  to  in- 
ternal consistency  and  truth  to  self.  But  he  con- 
ceived that  to  the  Greek  citizen  alone  was  it 
given  to  compass  this  devotion  to  self.  The 
great,  the  rich,  and  the  noble  are  called  j  as  for 


SOCRATES    AS    A    MISSIONARY  47 

the  rest,  they  must  be  regarded  as  morally  non- 
existent. Yet  it  was  a  master-stroke  to  have  dis- 
covered that  there  were  moral  beings,  that  only 
men  could  be  such,  and  that  they  could  achieve 
advance  in  their  ethical  vocation  only  by  co- 
operating with  one  another  in  society.  Socrates 
thus  adumbrated  the  doctrine,  foreordained  to 
go  on  ever  afterwards  increasing  in  sway — that 
virtue  is  the  one  thing  in  this  world  worth  get- 
ting, because  it  stands  marked  off  from  all  other 
goods  in  bearing  its  own  reward  with  it ;  it  is  the 
one  good,  perfect  in  its  self-centralization. 

Yet  Socrates  was  condemned  to  die  the  death. 
And  why?  He  had  sinned  against  his  age  in 
being  greater  than  it,  in  being  dissatisfied  with 
its  most  characteristic  achievements.  No  crime, 
or  shadow  of  crime,  could  be  recorded  against 
him ;  nevertheless,  he  was  thoroughly  out  of 
sympathy  with  the  political  conditions  of  his 
Athens.  As  Plato  said,  he  was  a  gad-fly  to  the 
Athenians.  For  him  Athens  was  the  old  imper- 
fect state,  not  the  City  of  God  that  he  contem- 
plated afar  off  in  his  moments  of  rarest  aspiration. 
He  plainly  hinted  that  the  good  man,  the  type  of 
citizen,  could  be  produced  neither  by  social  posi- 
tion nor  by  popular  election.  So  he  opposed 
partisans  of  oligarchy  and  democracy  alike. 
Only  he  who  knows  the  art  of  ruling  is  fit  to  de- 
cree just  judgment.  Not  all  citizens  are  naturally 
capai3le  of  discharging  executive  functions,  as 
the  democratic  party  thought ;  neither  does  this 
capacity  accompany  certain  outward  advantages, 
such  as  family  and  wealth,  as  the  oligarchs  pre- 
sumed. So  all  united  in  clamoring  for  his  death. 
As  often  happens,  those  who  stoned  the  prophet 
were  really  erecting  an  everlasting  monument  to 
him.  In  spiritual  life,  a  thing  "  cannot  be  quick- 
ened except  it  die/^     And,  as  John  Stuart  Mill 


48  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

says,  ''  Socrates  was  put  to  death,  but  the  So- 
cratic  philosophy  rose  like  the  sun  in  the  heavens, 
and  spread  its  illumination  over  the  whole  in- 
tellectual firmament."  He  had  made  a  contribu- 
tion to  man's  religious,  moral,  and  social  progress 
that  never  can  be  lost.  Once  and  for  ever  he 
had  shown  that  the  moral  universe  is  of  man's 
spirit  all  compact.  So  he  protested  against  a  rule 
of  life  drawn  at  haphazard  from  this  or  that  set 
of  opinions  ;  he  urged  the  duty  of  rising  to  clear 
consciousness  of  one's  own  aptitudes;  above  all, 
he  claimed  for  the  individual  a  right  to  employ 
them  in  his  own  service  as  well  as  in  that  of  the 
state.  Thus  he  broke  down  the  old  Greek 
artistic  idea.^  Life  is  not  a  limited  material 
out  of  which  as  good  a  statue  as  possible  is  to  be 
chiselled.  Life,  being  unique  in  every  man,  the 
possible  results  are  of  infinite  variety, — no  plan 
can  be  imposed  upon  it  for  its  perfecting.  Each 
separate  soul  in  the  Greek  world  must  needs  be 
treated  on  its  own  merits  ;  and  the  highest  illus- 
tration of  this  principal  Socrates  set  forth  in  his 
own  daily  walk  and  conversation.  He  discovered 
himself,  and  in  the  light  of  this  revelation  set 
about  arranging  his  relations  to  his  fellow-men. 
So  he  liberated  a  principle  entirely  foreign  to, 
and  destructive  of,  the  conventional  presupposi- 
tions of  the  traditional  Hellenic  moralists,  or 
rather  politicians.  Hence  his  peculiarly  personal 
contribution.  More  of  a  saint  than  a  thinker,  he 
lived  his  own  solution  of  his  own  problem,  walk- 
ing darkly  amid  the  shades  wherewith  the  crystal- 
lized civilization  of  his  day  surrounded  him. 
More  of  a  prophet  than  a  philosopher,  he  per- 
ceived  that  the  end  was  not  yet,  he  knew  that  it 

J  Cf.  Aristotle's  Ethics,  iii.   14  (1119  a  ii) ;  Plato's  R(^ 
public y  iii,  401. 


SOCRATES   AS   A   MISSIONARY  49 

was  not  his  to  utter  the  whole  burden  of  his 
message.  He  comprehended  **the  absolute  ne- 
cessity for  a  further  illumination,"  and  even  ven- 
tured '*in  express  words  to  prophesy  the  future 
advent  of  some  heaven-sent  guide."  Yet  he 
knew  not  the  things  whereof  he  spoke.  The 
divine  purpose  in  creation  had  to  labor  yet 
awhile  in  sore  travail  of  the  human  spirit  ere  the 
deliverer  could  come.  So  he  **  died  in  the  faith, 
not  having  received  the  promises,  but  having 
seen  them  afar  off,  and  confessed  "  that  he  was  a 
stranger  and  pilgrim  on  the  earth.  He  desired  a 
"  better  country,  that  is  an  heavenly  ;  wherefore 
God  is  not  ashamed  to  be  called  "  his  God  ;  for 
he  hath  prepared  for  him  a  city.  Thus  Socrates 
takes  his  place  among  the  indispensable  heralds 
of  the  Gospel,  and  we  are  his  heirs.  He  was  a 
chief  among  that  mighty  company  who,  "  having 
obtained  a  good  report  through  faith,  received 
not  the  promises ;  God  having  provided  some 
better  thing  for  us,  that  they  without  us  should 
not  be  made  perfect."  So  his  career  was  not 
lost,  but  passed  as  an  integral  element  into  that 
corporate  immortality  wherein  all  the  martyrs, 
saints,  and  prophets  of  human  aspiration  are 
most  truly  partakers. 


CHAPTER  III 

GREEK   SELF-CRITICISM 

"  None  of  them  was  left  alone  to  live  as  he  chose  ;  but  pass- 
ing their  time  in  the  city  .  .  .  their  avocations  ordered 
vi^ith  a  view  to  the  public  good,  they  regarded  them- 
selves as  belonging,  not  to  themselves,  but  to  their 
country." 

To  preserve  the  subtle  aroma  of  Greek  civiliza- 
tion no  common  means  sufficed.  Where  reli- 
gious, civic,  and  artistic  life  commingled  so  finely, 
the  ordinary  methods  of  abstract  thinking  could 
not  but  result  in  a  more  or  less  distorted  and  in- 
adequate reproduction.  As  usually  happens,  the 
moment  gave  birth  to  the  man.  Plato  was  phi- 
losopher, poet,  and  citizen  in  a  single  personality; 
and  by  his  rich  imagination,  no  less  than  by  his 
rare  insight  and  manifold  civic  associations,  he 
so  reacted  upon  Hellenic  culture  as  to  embody 
its  distinctive  traits  in  a  final  transcript,  enhanc- 
ing the  while  its  most  essential  principles.  De- 
tail for  its  own  sake  disappeared  in  his  atmos- 
pheric halo,  the  entire  impression  remained  so 
heightened  as  to  be  unmistakable  and  completely 
expressive.  Unsystematized  his  thinking  may 
be,  effective  in  offering  a  consistent  result  it  un- 
doubtedly is  and  always  must  remain.  With 
Aristotle,  on  the  other  hand,  analysis  crept  in, 
and,  in  a  ''plain  historical  way,"  the  elements 
incident  to  the  Greek  universe  unfolded  them- 
selves with  that  clearness  invariably  more  or  less 
incident  to  the  review  seriatim.  In  the  Platonic 
writings  the  Greek  man  revealed  himself,  show- 

5° 


GREEK    SELF-CRITICISM  5  I 

ing  forth  the  subtle  influences  that  lost  their  in- 
tellectual separateness  and  found  their  full  reali- 
zation in  his  culture ;  in  the  Aristotelian  books 
the  Greek  thinker  reported  all  this  life  had  to  tell 
of  man,  of  society,  of  the  physical  world.  The 
two  are  thus  complementary,  and  yet  both  are 
philosophers.  They  execute  their  work  under 
conditions  that  do  not  differ  entirely. 

His  lines  having  been  cast  in  a  sceptical  age, 
and  his  destined  function  being  the  foundation 
of  moral  philosophy,  Socrates  cannot  be  summed 
up  in  a  single  phrase.  An  evasive  twofold  move- 
ment marked  his  thought.  He  was  a  Sophist  in 
so  far  as  he  consciously  tried  to  turn  attention 
from  the  dogmas  of  the  older  physicists  to  the 
important  issues  centering  more  immediately  in 
human  life.  With  him  man  claims  imperatively 
the  importance  once  thrust  upon  nature ;  and 
like  other  moralists,  he  finds  the  best  exemplifica- 
tion of  his  contention,  not  in  a  vague,  abstract 
humanity,  but  in  the  fulness  of  individual  char- 
acter. In  this  he  apparently  approaches  the  con- 
clusion of  the  great  Sophist,  Protagoras  :  "Man 
is  the  measure  of  all  things;  of  what  is  that  it 
is;  of  what  is  not  that  it  is  not."  Yet,  for  the 
most  part,  he  escapes  the  dangers  of  individual- 
ism. For  although  primarily  a  moralist,  he  is 
never  content  with  the  citizen  in  isolation — a 
contradiction,  not  merely  in  terms,  but  also  in 
fact.  Here  his  large  sympathy,  a  main  element 
in  the  secret  of  his  power,  comes  to  the  rescue 
and  preserves  the  balance.  A  moralist,  Socrates 
is,  although  to  some  extent  unconsciously,  an 
Athenian  also.  Man  achieves  no  vocation  as  a 
measure  unless  there  be  objects  of  measurement. 
In  other  words,  although  each  may  have  a  life  to 
live,  if  not  a  soul  to  save,  Socrates  knew  that  a 
human  career  bears  certain  limitations  with  it 


52  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

which,  indeed,  constitute  the  very  possibility  of 
its  success.  No  Greek  of  the  classical  period 
laid  such  firm  hold  upon  the  truth  of  the  impor- 
tance of  individual  worth ;  many  Greeks  knew 
the  correlative  truth  of  social  opportunity  as 
fully;  and  two  reviewed  it  with  far  more  per- 
suasive effect.  So,  for  the  generations  who  came 
immediately  after  Socrates'  death,  the  semi-scep- 
ticism, semi-individualism  of  his  teaching  sink 
into  the  background,  while  his  shadowy  concep- 
tion of  a  socialized  reason  pushes  its  way  to  the 
front,  receiving  apotheosis  from  Plato,  explana- 
tion from  Aristotle.  Or,  to  express  the  develop- 
ment with  special  reference  to  our  present  in- 
quiry, attention  reverts,  for  a  time,  from  evolution 
of  the  sense  of  individuality  to  the  accomplished 
facts  of  social  organization.  But  although  the  past 
seems  thus  to  be  reinstated  for  a  moment  at  the 
expense  of  the  pregnant  movements  of  the  pres- 
ent, there  are  compensations  and  to  spare.  The 
Greek  ideal  had  been  actually  realized,  in  so  far 
as  any  ideal  ever  can  be;  it  remained  to  body  it 
forth  clearly  and  in  completeness  by  means  of 
philosophical  thought,  as  all  operative  ideals 
come  to  be  preserved  sooner  or  later  for  the  ben- 
efit of  posterity.  Plato  and  Aristotle  sounded 
the  heights  and  depths  of  Hellenic  civilization  as 
a  whole ;  from  the  same  mouths  proceeded  at 
once  justification  and  judgment. 

When  we  speak  of  Socrates,  we  ever  hold  the 
man,  the  distinctive  personality,  in  the  mind's 
eye.  When  Plato  and  Aristotle  are  mentioned, 
the  author  or  thinker  is  the  uppermost  idea  ;  the 
man  tends  to  recede  and  to  be  cast  into  shadow 
by  the  writings.  Interest  centres  in  what  Socra- 
tes did,  in  what  Plato  and  Aristotle  wrote, 
thought,  systematized.  The  popular  instinct 
shows  a  true  intuition  in  enforcing  this  contrast. 


GREEK   SELF-CRITICISM  53 

For  Socrates  fills  his  place  on  the  world's  great 
stage  in  virtue  of  his  life  and  practical  teaching  ; 
his  chief  pupils  by  their  reasoned  representation 
of  this  same  life.  Hence  their  vastly  deeper  sig- 
nificance as  Greeks,  his  incomparably  more  fasci- 
nating interest  as  a  human  being.  Plato  and 
Aristotle  found  conscious  expression  for  ideals 
that  had  long  been  moulding  the  conduct  of  men 
who  were  unconscious  of  their  inner  import. 
Thousands  upon  thousands  of  Greeks,  dead  and 
gone,  had  spent  themselves  for  the  ''Justice"  of 
the  Republic^  or  had  fashioned  their  behavior  as 
if  in  full  view  of  the  "  Magnanimous  Man  " 
limned  in  the  Ethics.  Warriors  and  statesmen, 
sailors  and  artists,  laborers,  women  and  little 
children,  had  poured  their  all — their  life — into 
the  seething  society  of  the  city-state.  Although 
they  knew  not  what  they  did,  their  united  sacri- 
fice had  blossomed  into  the  unparalleled  achieve- 
ments of  sculptors,  dramatists,  rulers,  orators, 
and  historians,  who  were  more  conscious  of  the 
hidden  springs  of  unity  only  because  their  sacri- 
fice happened  to  be  fraught  with  larger  opportu- 
nities, and  their  highest  selfhood  was  wrought 
out  in  a  career  that  depended  with  fuller  com- 
pleteness on  the  whole  body  politic.  But  they 
too,  like  their  nameless  and  forgotten  brethren, 
knew  disappointment,  defeat,  and  death.  All 
that  they  had  hoped  for  did  not  come  to  pass, 
yet  their  balked  aspiration,  just  in  so  far  as  it 
was  balked,  transmitted  itself  to  posterity,  there 
to  be  transformed  from  the  prophecy  of  aspira- 
tion into  the  fulfilment  of  fact,  or  to  act  as  the 
seed-plot  of  a  still  more  momentous  future.  Ig- 
norance, suffering,  failure  met  justification,  con- 
secration, and  success  in  the  mighty  age  of  Per- 
icles. Then  for  a  brief  space  the  cruelly  muti- 
lated dreams  of  a  race  came  to  their  kingdom  in 


54  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

a  world  that  now  seems  to  us  to  partake  in  this 
very  dream-nature.  Or,  once  more,  at  a  later 
day,  the  Greek  went  forth  to  civilize  the  Roman 
Empire,  sure  of  success  in  the  riches  of  his  in- 
heritance. What  were  these  mystic,  eager  am- 
bitions? What  justification  can  be  read  out  of 
their  results?  Above  all,  how  preserve  their 
consequences  fresh  ;  how  stay  the  hand  of  time's 
decay  from  their  magnificent  accomplishment? 
Plato  and  Aristotle  came  to  answer  these  ques* 
tions.  The  former,  affection  bathing  his  fine 
spirit,  caught  the  very  life  of  his  country  and 
kept  it  alive  for  our  instruction,  enabling  us  to 
see,  even  in  these  last  days,  that  in  its  very  being 
its  complete  justification  lay  enshrined.  The  lat- 
ter, prompted  partly  by  curiosi.ty  and  partly  by 
the  rapid  change  of  circumstances,  displayed  its 
permanent  lesson,  looking  rather  to  this  and  that 
aspect  of  its  varied  manifestation  than  to  the  en- 
tire life  itself.  Plato  incarnated  the  stages  of  the 
Hellenic  story  over  again,  and  gathered  up  its 
timeless  teaching  in  one  great  book.  Aristotle, 
keeping  his  eye  on  an  object  more  than  on  a  pul- 
sating organism,  drew  the  numerous  inferences  it 
suggested,  now  in  this  aspect,  now  in  that,  and 
explained  the  laws  that  it  seemed  to  illustrate. 
In  short,  all  the  strength  and  all  the  weakness  of 
Hellenic  culture  were  brought  to  clear  con- 
sciousness by  the  united  efforts  of  the  two  mas- 
ters ;  and  in  their  works  the  assembled  charac- 
teristics remain  for  the  instruction  and  warning 
of  humanity. 

In  its  two  permanently  significant  thinkers 
the  Hellenic  spirit  gathers  itself  together,  so 
to  speak,  and  applies  its  assembled  resources  to 
the  fundamental  problems  of  the  nature  of  the 
universe  and  of  man's  being.  Socrates*  sug- 
gestion, that  *'an  unexamined  life  is  not  worth 


GREEK   SELF-CRITICISM  $^ 

living,"  reappears  broadened  and  deepened. 
For  the  life  of  society,  critically  scrutinized  from 
every  side,  has  been  substituted  for  the  neces- 
sarily restricted  interests  of  the  single  person- 
ality ;  the  individual  must  needs  display  himself 
in  the  light  shed  by  the  community.  Plato  tries 
to  fathom  the  connection  between  the  thing  and 
the  thinker ;  to  show  how  the  various  elements 
in  experience — thought,  sensation,  passion,  and 
the  like — interact ;  to  set  forth  man's  necessarily 
moral  nature  as  it  stands  revealed  in  his  indis- 
pensable relation  to  the  political  organization. 
Speaking  generally,  he  fails,  or  rather  does  not 
attempt,  to  separate  these  inquiries,  mainly  be- 
cause the  organic  idea  of  the  state  had  laid  strong 
and,  in  a  way,  vivifying  hold  upon  him.  The 
Republic y  his  chief  constructive  work,  is  a  treatise 
on  everything — a  metaphysic,  psychology,  sociol- 
ogy, a  philosophy  of  religion,  of  education,  of 
art.  This,  indeed,  accounts  at  once  for  its  un- 
dying interest  and  for  its  sometimes  disappoint- 
ing limitations.  Aristotle,  on  the  contrary, 
separated  all  these  quests,  systematized  some,  in- 
vented a  precise  scientific  language  for  their  due 
discussion,  sought  to  discover  and  apply  princi- 
ples in  each  restricted  sphere.  Yet  he  and  his 
master  alike  embody  the  complete  awakening  of 
the  Greek  spirit — first  aroused  in  Socrates — from 
its  long  satisfaction  with  half-truths.  The  fact 
that  there  are  two  worlds — a  mental  and  a 
material,  an  ideal  and  a  physical,  one  of  reason 
and  one  of  passion,  a  moral  and  a  political — is 
now  fully  perceived,  and  the  magnitude  of  the 
resultant  problems  permits  of  no  easy  or  off- 
hand solution.  Thus,  so  far  as  concerns  our 
present  task,  the  service  of  Plato  and  Aristotle 
was  to  state  fully,  and  with  unmistakable  deci- 
sion, the  deepest  question  that  humanity  is  con- 


56  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

tiniially  called  upon  to  face  from  age  to  age; 
they  realized  the  tremendous  antagonisms  whereof 
thought  and  action  are  equally  so  prolific. 
There  are  two  worlds.  Are  they  utterly  foreign 
to  each  other  ?  Or  can  we  by  searching  find  out 
God — that  principle  of  unity  which,  manifested 
similarly  in  both,  proves  their  ultimate  and  un- 
alterable harmony  ? 

The  limitations  here  imposed  upon  us  plainly 
rule  out  anything  in  the  nature  of  a  competent 
review  of  extended  systems  devoted  to  topics  so 
high  and  intricate.  It  must  be  sufficient  for  us 
to  suppress  processes  and  to  rest  content  with 
concentrating  attention  upon  results.  Two  lead- 
ing consequences  ought  to  be  kept  conspicuously 
in  sight.  Both  masters  tend  to  fall  into  what  is 
termed  abstractness — that  is  to  say,  their  effort  to 
view  life  and  the  universe  as  a  whole,  whether 
from  the  ethical  or  the  metaphysical  standpoint, 
stops  short  of  completeness.  With  them,  as 
always,  searching  does  not  find  out  God,  because, 
for  Plato,  the  social  unity  tends  to  swamp  the  in- 
dividual's distinctive  characteristics ;  for  Aris- 
totle, an  intellectual  life,  that  seems  to  sit  loosely 
to  the  world  of  reality,  constitutes  the  highest 
idea.  In  a  word,  antagonisms  are  found  to  be 
suppressed  rather  than  overcome,  and  so  right- 
eousness never  flows  down  the  streets  like  a 
river,  nor  is  God  very  near  to  each  one  of  us. 
In  the  very  explanation  of  differences  seeds  of 
new  problems  lie  hidden,  destined  to  burst  forth 
at  no  distant  date.  Paradoxically,  Greek  self- 
criticism  ends  in  a  reconstruction  which  is  at 
once  permanently  instructive  and  fundamentally 
imperfect,  simply  because  the  criticism  happened 
to  be  Greek  and  Greek  only.  For  our  present 
purpose,  it  must  suffice  to  consider  these  two  con- 
trasted sides. 


GREEK   SELF-CRITICISM  57 

Regarded  in  its  organic  relation  to  the  Prepa- 
ration for  Christianity,  the  interest  of  Hellenic 
civilization,  whether  within  Greece  itself  or  in 
the  wider  areas  of  the  Macedonian  and  Roman 
Empires,  naturally  converges  upon  the  gradual 
awakening  of  a  sense  of  the  value  of  human 
personality  and  its  implications.  The  story  of 
this  growth  dates  from  Socrates,  as  we  have  seen. 
Immediately  after  his  death,  what  are  known  as 
the  Minor  Socratic  Schools  appeared,  and  set 
forth  an  account  of  life  which  dealt  specifically 
with  man  the  individual.  According  to  the 
Cyrenaics,  a  man  is  to  live  for  pleasure ;  accord- 
ing to  the  Megarians,  for  intellectual  attainment ; 
according  to  the  Cynics,  for  liberty  from  social 
conventions.  But,  as  has  also  been  shown,  the 
events  of  Greek  national  history  forced  the 
social  problem  upon  Plato  and  Aristotle  and 
led  them  to  dismiss  the  individual  for  a  little,  or 
at  least  to  minimize  his  importance,  except  in 
relation  to  the  society  of  which  he  was  a  mem- 
ber. While,  then,  these  thinkers  may  be  said  to 
call  a  halt  in  the  onward  course  of  development, 
for  this  very  reason  they  contrive  to  convey  last- 
ing lessons — first,  because  they  sum  up  the  total 
contribution  of  Hellenic  genius  ;  second,  because 
they  adopt  a  standpoint  supposed  to  be  peculiarly 
modern.  Recognition  of  the  law  that  a  human 
being  is  his  brother's  keeper,  with  its  attendant 
gospel  of  "ethical  culture,"  is  conceived  by 
many  to-day  to  be  a  main  discovery  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  spirit.  Accordingly,  we  find 
that  Plato  and  Aristotle  often  speak  in  strangely 
familiar  tones.  In  some  respects,  their  outlook 
happens  to  be  not  unlike  our  own.  At  the  same 
time,  they  afford  us  the  sole  opportunity  of  esti- 
mating at  once  the  strength  and  the  weaknesses  of 
the   social   idea  as  it  was  then  conceived — char- 


58  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

acteristics  which,  in  their  defects  at  all  events, 
profoundly  influenced  the  ancient  world  in  its 
slow  awakening  to  consciousness  of  those  neces- 
sities which  Christianity  alone  could  supply. 

The  constructive  vigor,  like  the  perennial  at- 
tractiveness and  importance  of  Plato  and  Aris- 
totle, flows  from  their  attempt  to  present  the 
unity  of  the  material  world  and  the  solidarity  of 
Greek  manhood.  Their  effort  was  to  arrive  at 
principles  capable  of  explaining  the  differences 
and  antagonisms  whereof  nature  and  society  are 
so  prolific.  In  other  words,  they  are  permanently 
significant  because  they  first  rise  to  the  true 
philosophical  standpoint,  the  standpoint  which, 
alike  in  the  sciences,  in  sociology,  and  in  specu- 
lative thinking  proper,  marks  the  best  modern 
thought.  The  lasting  value  and  import  of  such 
an  outlook  upon  the  deeper  things  of  life  lies  in 
its  distinctively  constructive  character.  And  al- 
though, as  was  natural,  Plato  and  Aristotle  abound 
in  criticism,  especially  of  their  predecessors,  in 
what  follows  we  must  suppress  this  aspect  of  their 
thought  so  as  to  concentrate  upon  the  permanent 
rather  than  the  transitory. 

The  mission  of  a  great  thinker  usually  proves 
to  be  twofold.  He  sums  up  the  essential  ele- 
ments incident  to  the  past  and  the  present  of  the 
civilization  he  represents ;  and  from  the  fresh 
height  thus  attained  he  issues  direction  for  the 
future.  His  aim  commonly  is  to  conserve  what 
he  deems  best,  and,  with  this  in  remembrance, 
to  point  out  what  ought  to  be  eliminated  if  cer- 
tain attendant  abuses  are  to  be  mitigated  or 
wholly  removed.  Plato  and  Aristotle  perform 
these  offices  perfectly  for  their  own  day  and  gen- 
eration. With  the  one,  a  profound  sense  of  the 
necessity  for  social  reconstruction  predominates ; 
with  the  other,  a  perception  of  the  need  for  es- 


GREEK   SELF-CRITICISM  59 

caping  unfavorable  contemporary  conditions  be- 
gins to  reveal  itself.  The  construction  of  a  new 
state  wherein  all  the  imperfections  incident  to 
the  Athenian  democracy  would  be  removed, 
wherein  the  vicious  extremes  developed  by  the 
Greek  citizen  would  be  suppressed,  forms  the 
central  point  of  interest.  Complete  provision  is 
to  be  made  for  the  education  of  man — and  edu- 
cation is  a  political  matter,  it  implies  contact 
with  others — so  that  he  may  be  skilled  to  discern 
what  is  of  civic  importance,  or  be  schooled  to 
rise  superior  to  the  rashness,  grossness,  or  vain 
display  which,  as  experience  had  shown,  entrap 
the  ill-trained.  Formally,  this  view  possesses  the 
greatest  merit.  But  its  success  depends  upon  the 
kind  of  society  which  bestows  the  education,  and 
upon  the  kind  of  aim  contemplated.  Of  a  truth, 
man  is  not  a  worthy  specimen  of  humanity  till 
he  has  been  so  educated  as  to  be  fit  to  fill  a  place 
in  the  social  organism — till,  thanks  to  his  train- 
ing, he  has  attained  a  clear  ideal  to  which  his 
life  may  be  worthily  consecrated.  When  the  pic- 
ture is  filled  in,  we  find  that  the  state  is  to  be 
served  by  the  practice  of  four  cardinal  virtues — 
Temperance,  Courage,  Wisdom,  and  Justice — 
and  by  a  carefully  cultivated  perception  of  the 
reasons  why  they  are  indispensable.  Society  re- 
poses upon  Justice,  but  not  in  our  sense  of  this 
term.  Justice  turns  out  to  be  a  principle  rather 
than  a  virtue.  It  pervades  the  body  politic  when 
every  citizen  finds  himself  occupying  the  position 
for  which  his  capacity  fits  him,  and  without  com- 
plaint remains  constant  in  the  sphere  whereto  he 
has  thus  been  relegated. 

Further,  the  state  is  to  be  the  sole  judge  both 
of  this  capacity  and  of  the  situation  it  necessarily 
entails.  The  dangers  which  threatened  the  very 
existence  of  the  Greek  politeia—iht  heedlessness 


6o  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

of  the  people,  their  attention  to  the  rhetoric  of 
mere  incompetent  charlatans,  their  readiness  to 
receive  and  to  give  unworthy  flattery — had  come 
to  be  sufficiently  obvious  to  the  reflective.  And 
it  was  Plato's  intense  desire  to  save  the  state  first, 
because  only  through  its  preservation  could  the 
regeneration  of  the  individual  be  accomplished. 
In  his  view,  the  citizen  possessed  a  single  right — 
that  of  filling  the  position  for  which  nature  had 
fitted  him;  and  the  state,  for  its  own  continued 
existence,  must  so  arrange  that  every  one  should 
occupy  his  own  predestined  niche.  The  one 
lives  and  moves  and  has  his  being  in  the  many. 
Plato  recognizes,  once  for  all,  that  society  is  an 
organized  system,  and  he  sees  too  that,  like  all 
systems,  it  must  be  viewed  in  the  light  of  the 
specific  ends  which  it  subserves.  His  strength 
depends  upon  this  perception ;  his  weakness  lies 
in  the  limitations  he  deemed  it  requisite  to  im- 
pose. The  kind  of  state  constitutes  his  ideal ; 
with  Aristotle,  on  the  other  hand,  the  kind  of  life 
to  be  attained  by  the  best  forms  the  be-all  and 
end-all  of  moral  theory.  Both  agree  that,  by 
thinking,  God — the  harmonious  unity  of  life  and 
things — can  be  discovered.  The  one  turns  his 
thought  upon  an  ideal  community  wherein  phi- 
losophers will  be  kings;  the  other  upon  an  ideal 
career  of  contemplation  which  the  temper  of  civ- 
ilization as  a  whole  will  render  possible.  For 
this  reason  both  are  at  once  final  and  yet  repre- 
sentative of  a  transition.  They  are  final  in  that 
their  abstract  thinking  is  constantly  dominated  by 
practical  purposes  and,  in  part,  their  interpreta- 
tion of  the  practical  cannot  be  improved  upon. 
The  social  character  of  their  speculation  and  its 
outcome  on  the  formal  side  must  always  remain 
guides  for  mankind.  Even  Christianity  has  come 
to  express  its  moral  teaching  in  the  forms  em- 


GREEK    SELF-CRITICISM  6 1 

ployed  by  them.  Upon  this  social  characteristic 
we  have  already  insisted  ;  its  formal  perfection 
may  now  engage  our  attention  for  a  little. 

''Every  form  of  virtue  arises  from  the  effort 
of  the  individual  to  satisfy  himself  with  some 
good  conceived  as  true  or  permanent,  and  it  is 
only  as  common  to  himself  with  a  society  that 
the  individual  can  so  conceive  of  a  good."  The 
lasting  influence  of  the  Platonic  and  Aristotelian 
teaching  is  to  be  sought  in  its  ceaseless  inculca- 
tion of  this  fact.  As  Aristotle  put  it,  "  Virtue  is 
a  power  of  working  beneficently."  Every  human 
being  possesses  such  a  power,  not  for  himself 
alone,  but  rather  in  and  for  the  society  to  which 
he  belongs.  The  social  medium  affords  him  the 
opportunities  requisite  to  his  development  of  him- 
self. Regarded  thus,  the  lessons  conveyed  by 
the  great  Greeks  are  eternal.  Virtue  cannot  be 
conceived  of,  much  less  practically  realized,  un- 
der any  other  conditions.  The  kind  of  society 
involved,  like  the  nature  of  the  moral  end  sought, 
may  be  imperfect.  The  fact  that  morality  is 
other-regarding  as  well  as  self-regarding,  that  it 
is  impossible  except  in  and  through  a  society, 
must  ever  remain  a  fundamental  truth.  It  is  the 
lasting  achievement  of  the  Athenian  thinkers  to 
have  been  the  first  to  comprehend  that  a  well- 
ordered  community  is  both  the  beginning  and 
the  end  of  ethical  progress.  Without  it  moral 
situations  cannot  come  into  being,  and,  in  its 
fundamental  evolution,  it  is  itself  an  ever  pro- 
gressing revelation  of  this  very  morality.  Thus, 
so  far  as  formal  statement  goes,  even  we  Christians 
cannot  travel  beyond  Aristotle's  deliverance : — 
"  The  single  virtue  of  practical  wisdom  implies 
the  presence  of  all  the  moral  virtues;  "  nor  be- 
yond Plato's,  less  specific  though  it  be  : — **  And 
in  truth,  said  I,  I  think,  looking  as  it  were  from 


62  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

a  watch-tower,  since  we  have  reached  this  point 
in  our  story,  that  there  is  one  form  of  virtue  and 
endless  kinds  of  vice."  Plato's  teaching  stands 
good  for  all  time,  because  he  recognized  the 
originating  source  of  virtue — interest  in  a  social- 
ized good.  Aristotle,  too,  is  enrolled  among  the 
permanent  benefactors  of  man,  because  he  saw 
the  real  end  for  which  all  morality  makes — in- 
terest in  the  good  for  its  own  sake.  Undeveloped 
the  social  conception  was,  imperfect  the  idea  of 
the  moral  goal,  but  the  shape  taken  by  the  com- 
mon teaching  is  that  within  which  all  moral  in- 
sight must  ever  fall.  The  bettering  of  life  through 
the  intercourse  between  men,  who  seek  good  for 
its  own  sake,  implies  at  once  individuals  and 
communities — that  is,  takes  up  into  itself  all  the 
resources  at  command.  For  the  life  that  is  thus 
enriched  is  not  merely  yours,  mine,  but  also  that 
of  the  neighbors  among  whom  we  move.  Plato 
and  Aristotle  must  be  counted  among  the  im- 
mortal guides  of  humanity,  because  they  incul- 
cate pursuit  of  good  for  the  sake  of  good,  and 
because  they  know  that  such  pursuit  is  impossible 
without  social  conditions,  without  a  stimulating 
sense  of  debt  to  the  society  that  affords  the  op- 
portunities for  well-doing.  Their  ''thought  is  in 
a  sense  ever  young,"  for  they  tell  us  that  "the 
moral  is  the  criterion  of  the  supernatural."  Only 
as  God  reveals  Himself  in  many  ways  do  we  find 
the  fit  occasions  to  reveal  ourselves  in  the  one 
manner  sufficient  for  us — devotion  to  duty  and 
goodness  according  to  our  appointed  circum- 
stances. 

Yet  while  the  form  of  the  Greek  teaching  was 
final,  its  matter  was  but  temporary.  As  is  always 
the  case,  the  society  whence  Plato  and  Aristotle 
drew  their  materials  was  marked  by  the  defects 
of  its  excellencies.     These  are  of  the  last  impor- 


GREEK   SELF-CRITICISM  63 

tance  for  our  present  inquiry,  because  gradual 
realization  of  them  by  the  men  of  the  ancient 
world  produced  that  feeling  of  helplessness  which 
so  powerfully  assisted  to  spread  Christianity  and 
to  deepen  conviction  of  its  fundamental  truth. 
They  may  be  very  briefly  summarized  as  fol- 
lows : — 

(i)  In  the  first  place,  the  Greek  conscience 
was  characterized  by  an  elasticity  that  seems 
strangely  in  contradiction  with  the  formal  perfec- 
tion attained  by  the  typical  thinkers.  This  was 
largely  traceable  to  the  influence  exerted  by  the 
analogy  from  art,  already  adverted  to,  and  by 
the  presence  of  a  slave  class.  Sane  use  of  life, 
especially  in  avoidance  of  all  disturbing  ex- 
tremes, was  a  noticeable  feature  of  Hellenic 
genius.  The  materials  supplied  by  human  nature 
and  by  society  were  regarded  as  so  much 
"  stuff,"  to  be  moulded  into  a  harmonious  whole 
by  the  moral  artist.  Naturally,  then,  many 
things  were  permitted  which  we  should  eschew, 
or  deem  inappropriate,  such,  for  example,  as 
regulated  indulgence  in  what  Christians  would 
term  sensual  pleasures.  This  was  inevitable  in  a 
social  state  where  women  were  supposed  to  be 
without  rights,  to  stand  on  much  the  same  level 
as  children  or  slaves  or  animals.  As  naturally, 
too,  some  enthusiasms,  from  which  much  that  is 
good  in  Christian  civilization  flows,  either  were 
tabooed  or  had  not  yet  gained  recognition. 
Much  that  we  associate  with  the  nature  of  reli- 
gion, for  instance,  either  did  not  exist  or  seemed 
to  imply  excesses  inconsistent  with  the  happy 
medium  of  moral  excellence.  The  "  well-con- 
sidered practice  of  the  good,"  simply  on  account 
of  this  "consideration,"  circumscribed  the 
sphere  supposed  to  be  coextensive  with  the  possi- 
bilities of  goodness. 


64  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

(2)  As  a  consequence  of  this,  the  Greek  moral 
universe  was  distinctly  straitened.  Such  virtues 
as  temperance  and  self-denial  which,  with  the 
truly  upright  modern  man,  overflow  all  life,  were 
viewed  as  specially  germane  only  to  desires  con- 
nected with  satisfaction  of  bodily  appetites  and 
as  dependent  on  circumstances.  Typical  of  this 
is  the  Socratic  idea  that  fornication  is  better  than 
adultery,  because  likely  to  be  less  disturbing  in 
its  results.  The  Greek  simply  feared  inartistic 
excess  if  certain  appetites — say  hunger,  thirst, 
and  sex — were  too  freely  gratified,  where  we  ab- 
hor the  very  suggestion  of  any  license.  Where 
the  Christian  regards  indulgence  as  bad  in  itself, 
the  Greek  viewed  it  as  unfitting  a  citizen  for  the 
performance  of  certain  offices.  If  intemperance 
break  in  upon  the  rights  of  others,  it  ought  to  be 
checked  ;  but  where,  as  in  the  case  of  women 
and  slaves,  others  possess  no  rights,  the  sphere  in 
which  a  certain  artistic  freedom  might  be  allowed 
inevitably  came  to  be  somewhat  elastic.  Indul- 
gence is  not  evil  in  itself,  but  rather  as  it  mili- 
tates specifically  against  the  preservation  of  that 
measure  or  balance  on  which  the  well-regulated 
life  depends.  Otherwise,  it  may  very  possibly  be 
harmless,  and,  therefore,  quite  permissible. 

(3)  A  third  defect  of  the  Platonic  and  Aristo- 
telian view  was  its  tendency  to  intellectualism. 
Virtue  reposes  so  much  upon  knowledge  that  it 
always  remains  a  good  open  to  the  few  only.  A 
man  must  know  how  moral  attainment  is  condi- 
tioned by  sensual  and  social  restrictions  and  by 
the  material  circumstances  peculiar  to  the  consti- 
tution of  the  universe.  A  certain  contemplation, 
implying  a  certain  trained  capacity  for  reflection, 
is  requisite  for  a  man's  moralization.  Accord- 
ingly, virtue  turns  out  to  be  aristocratic,  but  few 
can  enjoy  it  in  fulness.     In  these  circumstances, 


GREEK   SELF-CRITICISM  65 

the  intellectual  perception  on  which  morality  re- 
poses may  bring  with  it  the  conviction  that,  after 
all,  so  few  can  be  good  that  goodness  may  not 
greatly  flourish  here  below.  Aristotle's  ideal 
man  remains  an  ideal ;  the  pattern  of  Plato's 
ideal  state  is  laid  up  in  the  heavens.  So  a  species 
of  hopelessness,  which  was  to  reappear  later  with 
such  momentous  consequences,  may  be  traced 
even  in  Plato,  the  most  idealistic  of  Greek  think- 
ers. "Evils,  Theodorus,  can  never  perish ;  for 
there  must  always  remain  something  which  is  an- 
tagonistic to  good.  Of  necessity  they  hover 
round  this  mortal  sphere  and  the  earthly  nature^ 
having  no  place  among  the  gods  in  heaven. 
Wherefore,  also,  we  ought  to  fly  away  thither, 
and  to  fly  away  thither  is  to  become  like  God,  aar 
far  as  this  is  possible  ;  and  to  become  like  him  is 
to  become  holy  and  just  and  wise."  This  sense 
of  hopelessness  gradually  emerged  from  a  system 
that  treated  the  great  mass  of  the  people  as  in- 
capable of  moral  culture,  and  consequently 
tended  to  teach  those  who  could  attain  it  to  deem 
ideals  difficult  of  attainment  amid  abounding  de- 
fects. Ethical  culture  that  depends  upon  intel- 
lect cannot  but  be  confined  to  a  privileged  caste ; 
and,  if  morality  be  social,  this  caste,  being  but  a 
drop  in  the  bucket,  is  apt  to  find  efl'ort  after  ex- 
cellence too  high  for  it,  or  productive  of  little 
practical  effect  in  the  entire  life  wherein  perforce 
it  shares. 

(4)  Again,  the  Greek  theory  is  for  the  most 
part  socialistic.  It  leaves  little  room  for  individ- 
ual initiative.  The  moral  consequences  of  this 
are  obvious.  If,  in  the  state,  every  man  is  to  be 
legislatively  relegated  to  his  place,  some  of  his 
possibilities  are  sure  to  be  neglected.  A  muti- 
lated man  can  be  the  only  result  of  a  society  in 
which  property  is  abolished  ;  in  which  the  sweet 


66  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

relations  of  the  family  are  eliminated  ;  in  which 
no  field  is  left  open  wherein  one  may  execute 
judgment  as  to  his  capacity  for  serving  others 
along  with  himself.  Plato  committed  himself  to 
an  unselfishness  that  was  of  no  avail,  because  its 
sphere  of  action  had  been  blotted  out.  He  fell 
into  the  very  old,  and  still  somewhat  common, 
fallacy  of  seeking  to  create  the  spiritual  out  of 
the  unspiritual.  In  order  to  induce  men  to  live 
the  best  life,  he  completely  deprived  them  of  the 
very  reasons  why  they  should  seek  to  continue  to 
live  at  all.  In  fact,  the  socialistic  element  in  the 
Greek  ethical  scheme  so  operated  as  to  lead  to  a 
paradoxical  conclusion.  Morality  was  to  be  the 
consequence  of  an  organized  system  of  immoral- 
ity. The  plan  of  forcing  men  to  rise  superior  to 
personal  interests  by  depriving  them  of  all  inter- 
ests whatsoever — a  mark  of  every  socialistic 
arrangement — is  absurd,  mainly  because,  thus 
limited,  man  falls  below  the  level  of  individual- 
ity,— the  conditions  out  of  which  moral  life  can 
grow  are  improved  out  of  existence. 

(5)  Finally,  there  is  an  aspect  of  it  in  which 
Greek  morality  centres  in  the  principle  of  self- 
love.  For  this  the  identification  of  the  ethical 
with  the  aesthetic  standpoint  must  be  held  re- 
sponsible. ''Virtue,"  Plato  teaches,  "  will  be  a 
kind  of  health  and  beauty  and  good  habit  of  the 
soul ;  and  vice  will  be  a  disease  and  deformity 
and  sickness  of  it."  Even  more  explicitly  Aris- 
totle reasons  from  the  artistic  analogy.  A  good 
man  "will  be  eager  in  a  moderate  and  right 
spirit  for  all  such  things  as  are  pleasant  and  at 
the  same  time  conducive  to  health  or  to  a  sound 
bodily  condition,  and  for  all  other  pleasures,  so 
long  as  they  are  not  prejudicial  to  these,  or  in- 
consistent with  noble  conduct,  or  extravagant  be- 
yond his  means.    For  unless  a  person  limits  him- 


GREEK   SELF-CRITICISM  6^ 

self  in  this  way,  he  affects  such  pleasures  more 
than  is  right,  whereas  the  temperate  man  foUuws 
the  guidance  of  right  reason."  Or,  as  Plato  puts 
it,  revealing  the  inner  principle,  "The  virtue  of 
each  thing,  whether  body  or  soul,  instrument  or 
creature,  when  given  to  them  in  the  best  way, 
comes  to  them  not  by  chance,  but  as  tlie  result 
of  the  order  and  truth  and  art  which  are  im- 
parted to  them."  The  self  constitutes  the  central 
interest ;  it  is  filled  with  material  out  of  which 
a  good  statue  may  be  chiselled  ethically;  to 
know  how  to  do  this  is  the  starting-point  of  all 
moral  advance.  The  self  that  continues  ignorant 
in  this  matter  cannot  be  regarded  as  morally 
estimable;  it  may  be  disregarded.  Here  we 
have  an  instance  of  the  error  which  Philo  noted 
so  exactly  under  the  influence  of  the  different 
temper  of  the  first  Christian  century.  *'Man," 
he  says,  "  should  not  regard  the  world  as  an  ap- 
pendage to  himself,  but  himself  as  an  appendage 
to  the  world,"  This  self,  which  treats  the  world 
as  its  property,  is  the  power  that  separates  be- 
tween God  and  mankind,  between  man  and  man. 
And  implicitly  it  played  a  great  part  in  Greek 
teaching,  more  especially  as  it  was  embodied  in 
the  moral  precepts  of  Aristotle. 

To  sum  up.  The  very  strength  of  Hellenic 
culture  was  the  prime  source  of  its  defects. 
Civilization  as  a  whole  is  so  complex  that  one 
finds  it  hard  either  to  analyze  it  into  its  elements 
or  to  describe  it.  Its  significance  lies,  not  so 
much  here  or  there,  but  rather  in  the  definite 
judgment  that  at  such  and  such  periods  it  tends 
to  an  obvious  goal.  Regarded  thus,  the  culture 
of  Greece  is,  if  not  the  most  significant  phase  in 
the  evolution  of  civilization,  at  all  events  one  of 
the  most  significant.  This  constitutes  its  per- 
manent strength.     For  what  we  have  to  weigh  is, 


68  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

not  the  advance  of  humanity  as  a  whole,  but  the 
point  reached  by  it  in  a  given  community.  The 
perfection  of  Greek  society,  then,  lay  in  the  cir- 
cumstance that  it  realized  a  state  of  civilization 
such  as  had  never  been  reached  before.  As  a 
progressive  stage  in  the  development  of  mankind 
it  was  characterized  by  affinity  for  the  ideal  and 
good,  rather  than  by  attraction  for  the  bad  and 
backsliding.  This  attribute  revealed  itself  in 
the  freeborn  citizen  principally.  Culture  for  one 
class  in  the  state,  from  its  very  partiality,  at- 
tained an  unprecedented  measure  of  excellence. 
Still,  it  was  for  the  few  only.  The  organism 
starved  while  the  member  waxed.  Then  the  in- 
evitable reaction  set  in,  and  all  were  involved  in 
a  common  sickness.  The  citizens,  strong  at  first 
and  devoted  to  the  realization  of  their  ideals,  in 
the  end  became  affected  by  effeminacy,  by  light- 
headedness, by  immorality,  all  of  them  incident 
to  excessive  culture  and  to  contempt  for  toil. 
Finally,  they  were  enslaved  by  a  foreign  power, 
and  even  that  which  they  had  was  taken  from 
them.  But  their  travail  had  not  been  in  vain. 
For  their  social  traditions  remained  enshrined  in 
lofty  writings  which  embodied  the  type  of  higher 
manhood  that  it  had  been  the  mission  of  their 
community  to  develop.  The  fall  of  the  Hellenic 
state  was  due  to  its  inherent  weakness ;  but  this 
very  weakness  was  incidental  to  its  excellence. 
The  achievement  of  Greek  civilization  was 
splendid,  because  it  was  for  the  few.  It  was  the 
work  of  the  slave  that  furnished  the  citizens  with 
their  unparalleled  opportunities  for  self-improve- 
ment. They  so  far  actualized  their  ideal  of  life  ; 
but  this  stood  for  their  elevation  or  enjoyment, 
not  for  that  of  all  men.  They  thus  attained  a 
level  which,  in  its  way,  is  without  equal ;  but  the 


GREEK   SELF-CRITICISM  69 

way  is  not  entirely  good,  and  so  the  institutions 
born  of  it  had  to  give  place  to  others. 

Yet  in  one  aspect  of  it  the  Greek  conception  of 
the  good  is  final.  Early  society  always  associated 
the  good  and  the  good  life  with  the  acquisition 
of  worldly  rewards.  Not  till  the  time  of  Plato 
and  Aristotle  did  a  higher  conception  become 
prevalent.  They  tell  us  that  the  good  life  is  not 
that  in  which  virtue  is  reduced  to  the  level  of  a 
means  to  personal  ease,  but  is  rather  that  process 
of  development  of  character  in  which  the  virtues 
are  considered  ends  in  themselves.  **  Once  for 
all  they  conceived  and  expressed  the  conception 
of  a  free  or  pure  morality  as  resting  on  what  we 
may  venture  to  call  a  disinterested  interest  in  the 
good."  Or,  to  put  it  otherwise,  the  moral  theory 
of  Plato  and  Aristotle  is  final,  in  that  the  moral 
life  was  to  them,  not  a  career  of  pleasure,  of 
search  for  external  things,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
one  in  which  the  exercise  of  the  virtues  them- 
selves is  the  true  aim.  But  while  their  concep- 
tion of  the  moral  life  is  thus  perfect,  their  notion 
of  the  good  man  is  not.  They  failed  to  fill  out 
the  ideal  they  had  created.  They  finished  the 
work  given  them  to  do  when  they  created  the 
ideal — the  life  of  morality  for  the  sake  of 
morality.  But  the  morality  itself  that  they  had 
in  mind  was  relative  to  the  time  in  which  they 
lived.  Their  good  man,  naturally,  was  Greek 
through  and  through.  With  him  self-sacrifice  is 
fortitude.  To  die  for  a  barbarian  or  a  slave 
would,  in  his  eyes,  have  been  a  contravention  of 
propriety.  To  die  for  his  state  was,  with  the 
Spartan,  his  chiefest  glory.  Thus  the  Greek 
conception  of  the  highest  life  may  be  said  to  have 
fallen  short,  practically,  of  its  theoretical  perfec- 
tion. Society  was  an  organism  existing  for  the 
benefit   of  Greek   citizens;    all  others  were  ex- 


70  PREPARATION   FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

eluded  from  its  privileges,  or  enjoyed  them  in  but 
small  part.  And  so  the  civilization  passed  away, 
because  the  universal  idea  which  it  contained  in- 
evitably ruptured  the  form  into  which  it  was  in- 
troduced. It  needed  a  cosmopolitan  spirit,  not  a 
national  one,  and  a  religious  fervor,  not  an  intel- 
lectual curiosity,  ere  mankind  could,  as  matter  of 
fact,  come  into  line  with  the  eternal  conception , 
promulgated  by  the  Athenian  sages. 


CHAPTER  IV 

SALVATION    LY    WISDOM 

**  Greeks  seek  after  wisdom." — i  Cor.  i.  22. 

On  a  survey  of  their  history  as  a  whole,  it  be- 
comes evident  that,  under  Providence,  the 
Greeks  fulfilled  a  twofold  office  in  the  Prepara- 
tion for  Christianity.  In  the  period  of  their 
prime  they  built  up  a  unique  organization,  so 
limited  in  size  and  yet  so  highly  specialized  that 
the  object-lesson  it  affords  of  the  influence  wrought 
by  all-pervading  purposes  still  remains,  not  merely 
the  most  startling  on  record,  but  also  the  most 
easily  read.  There  is  nothing  in  all  history  so 
absolutely  unmistakable.  But  this  glorious  age 
was  doomed  to  pass  away,  and  with  its  disappear- 
ance one  office  of  the  Greeks  became  matter  of 
tradition.  The  vocation  of  citizenship  describes 
this  period  appropriately.  Two  writers,  one  in- 
timate with  the  actual  circumstances,  the  other 
viewing  them  from  a  distance,  have  summed  it 
up.  The  latter,  Plutarch,  tells  us  in  his  Life  of 
Theseus,  ''Now  after  the  death  of  his  father 
^geus,  forming  in  his  mind  a  great  and  wonder- 
ful design,  Theseus  gathered  together  all  the  in- 
habitants of  Attica  into  one  town,  and  made 
them  one  people  of  one  city,  whereas  before  they 
lived  dispersed,  and  were  not  easy  to  assemble 
upon  any  affair  for  the  common  interest.  .  .  . 
He  dissolved  all  the  distinct  state-houses,  council- 
halls,  and  magistracies,  and  built  one  common 
State-house  and  council-hall  on  the  site  of  the 
71 


72  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

present  upper  town,  and  gave  the  name  of  Athens 
to  the  whole  state,  ordaining  a  common  feast  and 
sacrifice  which  he  called  Panathanaea,  or  the 
sacrifice  of  all  the  united  Athenians."  Plato,  on 
the  other  hand,  brings  out  the  principle  of  unity 
that  formed  the  central  life  of  this  association. 
'  "  What  at  the  commencement  we  laid  down  as  a 
universal  rule  of  action  when  we  were  founding 
our  state,  this,  if  I  mistake  not,  or  some  modifi- 
cation of  it,  is  justice.  I  think  we  affirmed,  if 
you  recollect,  and  frequently  repeated,  that  every 
tfidividual  ought  to  have  some  one  occupation  i?i 
the  state,  which  should  be  that  to  which  his 
natural  capacity  was  best  adapted.  .  .  .  That 
fourth  principle  in  every  child  aiid  woman,  in 
every  slave,  freej?ian,  and  artisan,  in  the  rider, 
and  in  the  subject,  requiring  each  to  do  his  own 
work,  and  not  meddle  with  many  things y  In  an 
organized  society  of  the  kind  here  sketched  each 
citizen  paid  dearly  for  his  privileges  according  to 
modern  judgment.  As  a  man  he  counted  for  lit- 
tle ;  his  glory,  like  his  opportunity,  lay  in  his 
membership  of  the  state,  and  in  return  for  this  he 
unconsciously  gave  his  whole  career.  Uncon- 
sciously be  it  said,  because  the  Greek  was  un- 
aware how  he  spent  himself  for  his  city  ;  it  suf- 
ficed him,  and  no  sense  of  loss  pressed  upon  his 
soul  till  the  unique  circumstances  that  provided 
him  with  all  things  began  to  crumble  away. 

This  degeneration  was  due  partly  to  internal, 
partly  to  external,  causes.  Athens'  sudden  rise 
to  power  after  she  had  stemmed  the  awful  tide  of 
Persian  invasion  intoxicated  her  people.  Stran- 
gers abounded  within  her  gates,  and  her  old  vir- 
tue failed  to  inoculate  the  new  stock.  The  con- 
queror of  Xerxes  had  been  succeeded  by ''a 
loafer  in  the  market-place  and  on  the  hill  of  As- 
sembly, averse  equally  to  personal  service  and  to 


SALVATION   BY   WISDOM  73 

direct  taxation  for  the  weal  of  his  city,  who  was 
little  better  than  an  out-pauper  with  his  constant 
cry,  panem  et  circenses,  having  replaced  the  un- 
reasoned belief  of  his  forefathers  that  the  indi- 
vidual exists  for  the  state,  by  a  reasoned  convic- 
tion that  the  state  exists  to  support  and  amuse 
the  individual.  That  his  city  should  have  a 
circle  of  tributary  dependencies  whose  contribu- 
tions should  pay  for  mercenaries  to  fight  and  row 
in  his  stead,  for  ships  to  secure  his  corn-supply, 
and  for  free  shows  in  his  theatre  and  his  stadium, 
was  a  consummation  which  he  contented  himself 
with  desiring  devoutly.  He  would  neither  fight 
nor  pay  for  its  accomplishment,  and  with  his  idle 
criticism,  his  spoiled  temper,  his  love  of  litiga- 
tion, and  his  ceaseless  talk,  he  so  hampered  his 
own  executive  that  it  could  carry  out  no  imperial 
policy,  and  the  few  men  of  action  left  in  the  city 
hastened  to  reside  beyond  his  reach."  Pride — a 
major  vice  with  the  Greek  moralists — laid  hold 
upon  Athens,  frivolity  and  lack  of  restraint  ac- 
companied it,  and  resentment  was  thus  rapidly 
fomented  among  allied  and  rival  states.  Inter- 
nal jealousies  between  the  various  cities,  always 
smouldering,  now  became  obtrusive,  and  inter- 
necine strife  burst  forth.  Finally,  exhausted, 
impoverished,  and  degenerate  Hellas  fell  an  easy 
prey  to  foreign  conquest.  By  Aristotle's  time, 
Philip  and  Alexander  had  accomplished  their 
work,  free  Greece  had  been  swallowed  up  by  the 
Macedonian  empire. 

Shorn  of  their  old  self-government,  the  free 
cities  dwindled  precisely  where  dwindling  is 
most  disastrous — they  failed  to  furnish  any  longer 
those  sufficing  opportunities  for  exercise  of  civic 
vocation  which  had  rendered  generations  of 
Greeks  content  with  a  circumscribed  life,  simply 
because  its  limitations  never  struck  them.     But 


74  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

roused  now  to  clear  consciousness  by  a  long 
series  of  crushing  blows,  stripped  of  nigh  all  that 
had  rendered  life  precious  and  honorable,  they 
entered  upon  a  new  career,  one  altogether  diverse 
from  the  first,  one  immeasurably  less  picturesque 
and  striking,  though  destined  for  a  period  to  ex- 
ercise widespread  influence.  Deprived  of  his 
city,  the  Greek  went  forth  to  hellenize  the  known 
universe  and,  partly  unconscious  of  this  task,  to 
discover  a  new  mission  for  himself.  With  tradi- 
tional opportunities  swept  away  or  sadly  attenu- 
ated, the  question  came  to  be.  What  is  the  use  of 
life?  Moreover,  this  fresh  problem  was  not  of 
social  interest ;  each  individual  apart  must  needs 
solve  it  for  himself.  Thus  the  second  main  office 
of  the  Greeks  was  to  develop  the  perception  of 
personality,  and  to  compass,  with  such  aid  as 
human  reason  afforded,  a  scheme  for  the  worth- 
iest conduct  of  life.  In  this  search,  and  as  if  by 
the  way,  he  gave  laws  to  his  conquerors.  The 
tale  of  this  period  is  the  narrative  of  an  attempt 
at  salvation  by  wisdom.  And  as  the  plan  was 
foredoomed  to  failure,  the  story  is  also  one  of  a 
gradual  exhaustion  of  the  sources  whence  man 
could,  by  his  own  faculty,  extract  self-satisfac- 
tion, or  acquire  insight  into  the  ultimate  import 
of  life  and  the  universe. 

Disinherited,  and  thrown  into  the  seething 
maelstrom  of  a  mighty  empire,  man,  not  now  as 
a  Greek  citizen,  but  as  a  human  being,  found  him- 
self face  to  face  with  the  perennial  problems  sur- 
rounding the  meaning  of  this  mysterious  world. 
Without  the  supports  afforded  by  a  career  clearly 
mapped  out  in  a  well-defined  social  medium,  these 
questions  became,  not  merely  more  pressing,  but 
of  immediate  moment  to  every  reflective  person. 
The  overwhelming  difficulty  connected  itself 
with  the  ordering  of  the  soul — it  no  longer  stood 


SALVATION   BY   WISDOM  75 

related  to  the  constitution  of  the  city.  Citizen- 
ship in  the  old  sense,  implying  that  every  free- 
man was  a  judge  in  matters  of  high  policy,  had 
degenerated  into  provincial  municipalism ;  the 
counting  of  bricks,  the  weighing  of  mortar,  the 
provision  of  sites  for  self-advertising  monuments 
had  displaced  momentous  constitutional  issues 
and  far-reaching  decisions  on  foreign  policy.  In 
these  circumstances,  it  was  a  clamant  question, 
How  is  a  man  to  live  so  as  to  safeguard  his  own 
well-being?  How  can  he  most  profitably  hus- 
band and  employ  his  own  resources,  seeing  that 
all  others  are  gone?  The  post- Aristotelian 
Schools,  as  they  are  usually  termed,  arose  to 
make  reply. 

The  urgency  of  the  new  need  is  enforced  and 
illustrated  by  the  wonderful  unanimity  that 
marked  these  schools,  despite  the  extraordinary 
fierceness  that  sometimes  accompanied  their  mu- 
tual polemics.  Whether  the  competing  philo- 
sophical sects  were  aware  of  it  or  not,  they 
proved  themselves  subservient  to  a  common  aim. 
Be  they  Epicureans  or  Stoics  or  Sceptics,  all  are 
intensely — sometimes  pathetically — desirous  of 
formulating  a  scheme  of  life,  of  providing  the 
individual  man  with  such  a  sketch  plan  of  con- 
duct that,  by  due  observance  of  its  provisions, 
he  may  make  the  best,  not  now  of  citizenship, 
but  of  himself.  All  evince  profound  anxiety  to 
place  tlie  most  worthy  career  within  reach  of 
everybody.  Widely  as  they  may  differ  in  respect 
of  the  means  to  be  employed,  the  end  sought 
was  invariably  identical.  Furthermore,  as  time 
passed  and  evils  became  still  rifer,  one  can  trace 
a  distinct  tendency  towards  minimizing  differ- 
ences, and  towards  concentrating  available  sug- 
gestions upon  the  desired  result.  The  truth  that, 
above   all   things,  men   must   be  armed  to  free 


76  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

themselves  from  the  wearinesses  that  flesh  entails, 
gradually  outweighs  assorted  fictions  concerning 
the  method  whereby  this  consummation  is  to  be 
gained.  As  men  realize  that  they  are  less  and 
less  citizens,  they  come  to  know  that  they  are 
more  and  more  human  beings.  And  for  each 
soul  the  question  of  last  importance  is,  How  am 
I  to  live,  how  prepare  to  die?  Accordingly, 
"Individualism  in  ethics,  subordination  of  all 
science  to  an  ethical  end,  and  materialistic  real- 
ism are  common"  equally  to  Epicurean  and 
Stoic.  The  Sceptics,  too,  no  matter  how  they 
may  criticise  and  deride  the  positive  teaching  of 
the  rest,  are  at  one  with  them  in  their  individu- 
alism. The  fact  of  personal  consciousness,  of 
personal  existence,  of  individuality,  is  the  one 
prominent  feature  tliat  even  the  most  consistent 
doubter  cannot  explain  away.  Finally,  and  in 
further  proof  of  substantial  unanimity,  the  watch- 
words of  all  the  philosophical  sects  possess  per- 
manent value,  not  so  much  because  they  happen 
to  be  partly  true,  but  rather  because  they  bear 
practically  the  same  relation  to  the  life  of  the 
time.  All  are  striving  to  set  up  landmarks  and 
to  furnish  direction  suitable  to  a  condition  of 
affairs  for  which,  as  was  inevitable,  the  great  sys- 
tematic thinkers,  Plato  and  Aristotle,  had  appar- 
ently furnished  no  guidance. 

Seeing,  then,  that  the  once  state  had  disap- 
peared. Epicureanism  and  Stoicism  agreed  that  a 
basis  of  life  was  to  be  sought,  not  in  political, 
but  in  natural  law.  Man,  the  individual,  had  a 
natural  right — a  right  amounting  almost  to  an  in- 
junction— to  fight  for  his  own  hand.  And  by  an 
easy  association  of  ideas,  it  was  conceived  that 
he  must  attempt  to  obtain  something  tangible  for 
himself;  therefore  a  materialistic  doctrine  of  the 
external  world  was  adopted.     The  natural  man 


SALVATION    BY    WISDOM  77 

perceives  no  more  than  the  natural.  He  who 
cannot  look  beyond  himself  seeks  his  self-devel- 
opment in  something  definitely  his  own.  But  if 
materialism  thus  be  the  basis  of  this  individual- 
istic ethical  theory,  it  is  plain  that  the  term 
*'  natural,"  on  which  it  rests,  may  be  capable  of 
very  varied  interpretation  in  its  application  to 
humanity.  This  fact  gave  rise  to  the  wide  dis- 
crepancies between  the  two  schools  to  which  we 
now  turn. 

Our  common  use  of  the  word  "  epicurean  " 
leads  us  to  associate  the  system  of  Epicurus  with 
doctrines  that  do  not  fairly  represent  it.  We 
suppose  that  this  school  consisted  of  sensualists 
who  lived  to  gratify  their  own  tastes  ;  and  we 
often  confound  Epicureanism  with  a  theory  of 
the  means  best  calculated  to  subserve  such  grati- 
fication. But  if  the  circumstances  in  which  this 
system  arose  be  examined,  it  will  soon  appear 
that  an  interpretation  of  the  kind  is  neither  just 
nor  accurate.  The  outcry  on  all  sides,  amid  the 
falling  away  of  the  Greek  state  and  culture,  was, 
Who  will  show  us  any  good  ?  To  the  precise 
nature  of  this  desired  good  the  Epicurean 
thinkers  turned  their  attention.  They  held  that 
it  must  be  pleasure.  At  the  same  time,  they 
were  not  such  greenhorns  as  to  identify  pleasure 
with  grossness.  ''The  aim  and  end  of  all 
action,"  Epicurus  himself  taught,  "  is  that  we 
may  neither  suffer  nor  fear;  when  once  this  end 
is  realized,  all  the  tempest  of  the  soul  subsides, 
for  animal  nature  has  then  no  need  to  satisfy, 
nothing  is  wanting  to  the  full  completion  of  good, 
whether  of  body  or  soul.  For  we  want  pleasure 
when  we  feel  pain  at  its  absence ;  when  we  feel 
no  pain,  we  want  no  pleasure.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  we  saw  that  pleasure  is  the  beginning 
and  end  of  a  happy  life."     Again,  and  this  time 


78  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

even  more  unmistakably,  Epicurus  declares, 
*'When  we  say  that  pleasure  is  the  end,  we  do 
not  mean  the  pleasures  of  the  libertine  and  the 
pleasures  of  mere  enjoyment,  as  some  critics 
either  ignorant  or  antagonistic  or  unfriendly  sup- 
pose, but  the  abse?ice  of  pain  in  the  body  and 
trouble  in  the  mind.  For  it  is  not  drinkings  and 
revellings  .  .  .  nor  tables  loaded  with  dainties 
which  beget  the  happy  life,  but  sober  reasoimig 
to  discover  what  must  be  sought  and  avoided, 
and  why,  and  to  banish  the  fancies  that  have 
most  power  over  men's  souls."  In  short,  the 
end  of  the  good  man's  life  is  not  pleasure,  but 
serenity.  Here,  then,  the  great  divergence  be- 
tween the  Epicurean  and  Stoic  view  comes  to 
light.  For  the  Epicurean  interpretation  of  the 
term  **  nature"  is  not,  as  with  the  Stoic,  stern 
fortitude,  but  the  self-possession  of  one's  own 
life. 

If  the  true  aim  of  life  thus  be  serenity,  it  is 
not  surprising  that  for  long  centuries  Epicurean- 
ism should  have  been  the  philosophy  of  protest. 
Just  as  Epicurus  himself  had  lived  in  retirement 
at  Athens,  seeking  his  own  ideal,  so  his  later 
followers,  in  Greece  and  at  Rome,  tried  to  work 
out  their  own  salvation  in  a  career  apart  from 
state  or  church  or  culture ;  they  attempted  to 
make  life  centre  in  actual  pleasure — in  the  pleas- 
ure of  harmony  with  self.  For  this  reason  they 
were  violently  attacked,  not  only  by  those  of 
orthodox  faith,  but  also  by  politicians,  and  by 
men  of  culture  for  whom  the  traditional  pagan- 
ism was  a  dead  letter.  Accordingly,  the  Epicu- 
rean held  that  serenity  was  to  be  attained  only  by 
emancipation.  To  achieve  pleasure — to  arrive 
at  that  state  of  harmony  with  self  in  which  the 
absence  of  pain  and  trouble  are  the  chief  char- 
acteristics— a  man  must  needs  free  himself  from 


SALVATION    BY    WISDOM  79 

all  limitations  whether  imposed  upon  him  by  so- 
ciety, by  religion,  or  by  culture.  Hence  the 
need  for  philosophy — which  is  but  an  activity  of 
the  self,  leading,  through  the  use  of  reason,  to 
the  fruition  of  happiness.  And,  as  naturally, 
this  philosophy  falls  into  two  distinct  parts. 

Man  finds  himself  in  the  world  ''like  a  child 
stranded  in  the  darkness  of  night."  Conse- 
quently, at  the  outset,  a  theory  of  this  universe 
and  of  man  as  a  portion  of  it  must  be  obtained. 
In  another  of  its  aspects,  philosophy  is  an  activity 
of  reason  that  leads  to  happiness.  So,  in  the 
second  place,  the  manner  in  which  man  is  to  use 
his  knowledge  of  himself  and  of  the  world  so 
that  he  may  obtain  serenity  must  be  explained. 
Epicureanism  thus  separates  itself  into  two  main 
quests.  First,  it  gives  an  account  of  nature  and 
man ;  second,  it  applies  this  information  to  each 
individual  case  with  a  view  to  showing  how  all 
may  acquire  happiness  in  the  sense  of  serenity  or 
harmony  with  self.  The  former  is  completely 
subordinate  to  the  latter.  Now  in  a  materialistic 
system  sensation  is  regarded  as  the  sole  criterion 
of  reality,  and  all  that  can  be  known  must  be  ob- 
tained through  its  medium.  Touch,  as  Lucretius 
said,  is  the  sense  of  the  body,  all  others  being 
but  modifications  of  it.  The  universe  is  an 
aggregate  of  atoms,  and  in  like  manner  the  soul 
is  a  compound  of  elements.  As  everything  is 
thus  material  and  appeals  to  us  only  through  the 
senses,  it  is  evident  that  the  basis  of  conduct 
must  be  sought  in  feeling.  The  object  of  ethics, 
consequently,  must  be  to  teach  men  the  real 
nature  of  their  feelings ;  to  prevent  them,  in 
other  words,  from  mistaking  the  lesser  for  the 
greater  pleasure.  This  attitude  receives  illustra- 
tion in  many  of  Epicurus'  sayings,  as,  for  ex- 
ample, in  the  following  : — "  Accustom  thyself  in 


So  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

the  belief  that  death  is  nothing  to  us,  for  good 
and  evil  are  only  where  they  are  felt,  and  death 
is  the  absence  of  all  feeling ;  therefore,  a  right 
understanding  that  death  is  nothing  to  us  makes 
enjoyable  the  mortality  of  life,  not  by  adding  to 
years  an  illimitable  time,  but  by  taking  away  the 
yearning  after  immortality."  It  is  evil  to  yearn 
for  immortality,  because  this  craving  produces 
pain  ;  it  creates  a  want  that  can  never  be  satis- 
fied, and  therefore  subtracts  from  the  pleasure  of 
life.  Feeling  is  the  sole  source  of  the  difference 
between  good  and  evil.  The  reactionary  tend- 
ency of  the  teaching  peeps  out  here.  The  aim 
of  Plato  and  Aristotle  was  to  conform  to  a  cer- 
tain ideal,  say,  as  with  the  latter,  the  beautiful. 
Now  an  ideal  implies  that  there  is  some  larger 
body  to  which  the  individual  belongs ;  it  is  but 
the  revelation  of  the  function  of  some  organism 
— a  notion,  not  discernible  in  any  part,  but  a 
principle  linking  all  the  members.  But  because 
the  life  of  the  city,  the  chief  exemplar  of  such 
an  organism,  had  passed  away,  the  Epicureans 
did  not  experience  either  its  necessity  or  its 
value.  For  them  man  stands  alone ;  he  is  a  be- 
ing who  possesses  certain  feelings,  and  who, 
doubtless,  occasionally  comes  into  relation  with 
his  fellows.  But  such  connections  are  accidental 
and  momentary.  Obligations  imposed  by  them 
are  in  no  way  binding.  The  individual  man, 
just  because  his  feelings  are  peculiarly  his  own, 
comes  to  be  the  centre  of  the  universe.  The 
state  of  nature  is  the  ideal  condition.  "  A 
body  free  from  pain,  and  a  mind  released  from 
perturbations,"  cannot  be  possessed  unless  a  man 
isolate  himself.  Self-possession  constitutes  the 
prelude  to  serenity  when  feeling  is  the  main  bar 
to  it.  The  man  who  clearly  sees  this  has  earned 
the  title  "  wise,"  and  by  his  wisdom  he  is  saved. 


SALVATION    BY    WISDOM  8 1 

Stoicism,  like  Epicureanism,  was  based  upon 
an  interpretation  of  "  nature,"  but  upon  one  of  a 
very  different  kind.  According  to  Zeno  and  his 
followers  the  world  is  an  aggregation  of  blind 
forces  governed  by  a  single  all-pervading  reason. 
The  Stoic  creed  is  pantheistic.  The  distinctive 
nature  of  man,  that  whereby  he  is  differentiated 
from  other  things,  lies  in  his  possession  of  reason. 
He  alone  can  perceive  that  the  universe  is  con- 
trolled by  an  ever  present  rational  principle. 
Seeing,  then,  that  the  possession  of  this  special 
faculty  is  man's  peculiar  prerogative,  it  is  but 
proper  that  he  should  set  it  in  authority  over 
lower  elements.  No  doubt  he  has  physical  ap- 
petites; but  these  belong  to  the  animals  also.  A 
human  being  ought  so  to  manage  that  reason  may 
control  the  passions.  To  live  according  to  na- 
ture is  to  live  according  to  reason.  But,  like 
their  contemporaries,  the  Stoics  were  also  indi- 
vidualists. Each  man  must  be  ruled  by  his  own 
reason.  Nay  more,  not  only  is  he  cut  off  from 
his  neighbors,  but,  in  his  life,  acts  are  separable 
from  one  another.  Merit  and  award  are  dis- 
tributed according  to  the  good  or  evil  intent  of 
the  act.  No  gradation  is  possible.  All  vices  are 
of  the  same  degree  of  badness,  for  all  are  due  to 
the  presence  of  unreason  in  the  soul;  but  "the 
wise  man  is  absolutely  perfect,  lord  of  himself 
and  master  of  the  world."  Nor  does  the  disin- 
tegrating influence  of  the  decline  of  the  city-state 
cease  here.  The  wise  man  is  not  simply  an  in- 
dividual, having  a  life  of  his  own  to  live  for  him- 
self, he  is  not  restricted  by  any  binding  ties  of 
race  and  country.  He  is  bound  to  carve  out  his 
own  career  in  his  own  way  and  for  his  own  ends. 

The  Stoic  philosophy  is  thus  by  its  own  con- 
fession entirely  an  affair  of  practice.  And  so  the 
question  comes  to  be.  By  what  means  may  a  man 


82  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

most  successfully  secure  inward  peace  of  mind 
and  happiness  ?  This  problem  is,  obviously,  an 
ethical  one,  and  an  explanation  of  the  world  can 
be  useful  only  in  so  far  as  it  subserves  the  ends  of 
morality.  Or,  to  use  the  words  of  Posidonius, 
the  Stoic,  "  Logic  is  the  shell,  pliysics  the  white, 
and  ethics  the  yolk."  The  treatment  of  nature 
forms  an  introduction  to  the  consideration  of 
man.  Matter  is  passive,  and  into  it  all  motion 
proceeds ;  force  is  active,  it  is  the  working, 
moving  power.  The  two  cannot  be  separated. 
The  universe  turns  out  to  be  a  perfectly  fixed, 
eternal  order  of  phenomena.  In  it  each  thing 
has  a  certain  office  to  fulfil.  Thus  the  thing  or 
person  which  best  fills  its  place  will  be  virtuous 
— that  is  to  say,  it  will  be  reasonable,  and  so  at- 
tain the  highest  good.  In  the  light  of  such  a 
theory  it  is  but  a  step  from  nature  to  man,  and 
the  analogy  between  them  can  be  readily  worked 
out.  As  in  the  order  of  the  phenomenal  world 
everything  is  submissive  to  one  great  overruling 
power,  so  ought  it  to  be  in  the  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual. The  passions  are  the  sole  disturbers 
here  ;  reason  is  the  ruler.  This  plainly  implies 
that  reason  is  able,  and  bound,  to  stamp  the 
passions  out.  It  was  because  the  Stoics  started 
from  the  logical  position  that  force  could  be 
known  only  in  relation  to  matter,  and  good  in 
relation  to  evil,  that,  when  they  came  to  treat  of 
life,  the  antithesis  between  reason  and  passion 
emerged.  "Reason,"  says  Seneca,  ''  is  nothing 
else  than  a  part  of  the  divine  spirit  immersed  in 
the  human  body."  Accordingly,  it  must  de- 
velop through  all  its  stages  without  let  or  hin- 
drance. Hence  greatest  importance  is  to  be 
attached  to  its  growth  in  every  case.  With  each 
man,  reason  becomes  the  sole  standard  of  virtu- 
ous action.     *<  For  man,  the  blessed  life  consists 


SALVATION    BY    WISDOM  83 

in  the  perfection  of  his  reason,  which  alone  can 
render  him  self-dependent  and  superior  to  the 
assaults  of  fortune;  which  imparts  a  perception 
of  all  truth,  and  gives  order,  moderation,  and 
dignity  in  action,  a  will  harmless  and  benig- 
nant, at  once  lovable  and  admirable.  .  .  .  This 
is  the  life  of  virtue  which  is  the  only  good."  If 
man  be  thus  constituted  by  nature,  it  follows  that 
a  very  specific  account  of  his  ethical  life  can  be 
given.  And  it  may  be  said  that,  to  all  intents 
and  purposes,  the  Stoic  ethics  are  summed  up  in 
two  propositions.  Virtue  consists  in  conformity 
to  nature  ;  this  virtue  is  sufficient  for  happiness. 
We  have  already  seen  that  nature  is  a  complex 
of  matter  and  the  force  of  reason  which  sweeps 
through  it.  There  is  thus  a  certain  fate  in  the 
universe.  Or,  as  one  of  the  Stoics  puts  it,  *'  Fate 
leads  us  on,  and  what  of  time  remains  for  each 
of  us  the  first  hour  of  our  birth  allotted.  .  .  . 
A  long  time  ago  it  was  appointed  you  what  you 
should  rejoice  over,  what  you  should  weep 
over.  .  .  .  Cause  depends  upon  cause  .  .  . 
nothing  happens,  but  it  comes."  The  supreme 
duty  of  the  wise  man  is  to  submit  himself  to  this 
order.  Virtue  consists  in  this  submission.  It 
begins,  as  I  think  Zeller  pointed  out,  with  that 
acknowledgment  of  the  fact  of  a  rational  order 
which  the  wise  man  alone  can  apprehend  ;  it 
ends  with  a  willing  submission  to  the  course  of 
this  order,  an  obedience  which  the  wise  man 
alone  can  render.  But,  secondly,  virtue  is  suffi- 
cient for  happiness — that  is,  only  in  submission 
to  the  course  of  nature  is  true  happiness  to  be 
found.  The  highest  good  is  the  **  harmony  of 
the  soul."  Happiness  thus  comes  to  be  that 
harmony  of  the  soul  which  arises  from  a  perfect 
understanding  of  its  own  behests,  and  a  complete 
compliance  with  them.     Reason  is  here  a  law  to 


84  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

itself,  and  the  life  it  inspires  is,  by  consequence, 
a  career  of  complete  conformity  with  the  nature 
of  the  rational  order  of  the  universe.  The  wise 
man  must  of  necessity  eschew  all  passion.  This 
implies  the  renunciation  of  pleasure.  Pleasure 
depends  upon  mere  external  considerations,  while 
real  virtue  is  an  end  in  itself.  This  definition  of 
virtue  is  one  of  the  most  important  and  distinc- 
tive Stoic  doctrines.  Although  virtue  may  bring 
happiness,  it  must  be  sought  entirely  for  its  own 
sake.  The  moment  one  seeks  it  for  the  happi- 
ness it  offers,  it  ceases  to  be  virtue.  "You  mis- 
take when  you  ask,  what  is  that  for  the  sake  of 
which  I  seek  virtue?  Herself;  for  she  has  noth- 
ing better  ;  she  is  her  own  reward."  Or,  as  the 
Stoics  put  it  in  one  of  their  most  famous  para- 
doxes, "  Not  to  need  happiness  is  happiness." 
All  true  good  is  consequently  internal.  On  this 
view,  even  the  loss  of  every  earthly  blessing,  nay, 
death  itself,  may  be  made  subservient  to  happi- 
ness. ''  The  ills  of  life,"  as  another  of  the  para- 
doxes runs,  ''are  not  ills,  except  to  those  who 
bear  them  ill."  Further,  the  very  evils  of  life 
may  be  goods.  The  cleverest  scholars  set  them- 
selves the  hardest  tasks,  the  bravest  soldiers  re- 
ceive the  most  perilous  positions,  so  it  is  by  favor 
of  the  universal  reason  that  a  man  is  selected  to 
suffer  the  wounds  inflicted  by  the  slings  and 
arrows  of  outrageous  fortune.  "Prosperity  is 
primarily  to  the  mass,  to  those  of  low  talents." 
"  Never  to  have  been  miserable,"  as  another 
paradox  runs,  "  is  to  be  miserable." 

But  within  the  individual  himself  there  is  a 
certain  element  which  militates  against  the  attain- 
ment of  this  conformity  to  nature — against  this 
virtue  with  its  attendant  happiness.  In  man's 
being,  as  has  already  been  shown,  a  schism  pre- 
vails, just  as  there  is  the  division  between  matter 


SALVATION    BY   WISDOM  85 

and  reason  in  the  physical  world.  In  human 
nature,  reason  and  passion  ever  confront  one 
another.  Passion  it  is  that  vitiates  life ;  it  can- 
not coexist  with  a  reasonable  view  of  things. 
The  passions,  with  their  vain  imaginations  con- 
cerning the  present  and  future  of  existence,  cause 
all  pleasures  and  desires,  all  ills  and  cares  and 
fears.  From  this  notion  there  results,  not  only 
the  division  of  man's  nature  into  two  unrelated 
halves,  but  also  the  Stoic  reduction  of  virtue  to  a 
merely  theoretical  level,  it  becomes  purely  inter- 
nal and  individualistic  ;  that  is  to  say,  it  can 
never  be  put  to  practical  use  in  life.  For  if  a 
man  is  to  pursue  his  duty,  he  must  eliminate  the 
adverse  element,  and  this  is  various  in  each. 
"  What  can  be  better  for  us  who  have  received  a 
rational  nature,"  writes  Seneca,  "than  reason. 
.  .  .  All  things,  therefore,  are  to  be  made 
light  of  and  borne  with  tranquil  mind."  Har- 
mony with  self  and  with  the  world-order,  indif- 
ference, calmness  in  all  circumstances,  these  are 
the  features  of  the  Stoic  ideal.  But  realization 
of  it  implies  conditions,  and  so  the  problem 
comes  to  be.  What  are  the  conditions  of  the  per- 
fect life?  They  may  be  summarized  as  four  in 
number.  First,  the  passions  must  be  rooted  out. 
Second,  a  man  must  retire  from  social  life  with 
its  numerous  absorbing  cares.  Third,  he  must 
school  himself  to  hardness,  he  must  become  an 
ascetic.  "  We  must  be  accustomed  to  remove 
ourselves,"  says  a  Stoic  who,  curiously  enough 
was  a  millionaire,  **  from  all  display  ...  to 
restrain  all  luxury,  to  govern  our  appetites,  to 
measure  things  by  their  use,  not  by  their  orna- 
ment. Wealth  must  not  be  sought.  An  amount 
but  little  removed  from  poverty,  and  far  removed 
from  riches,  so  that  our  independence  shall  not 
be   sacrificed  on  the  one   hand,  nor  our  vanity 


86  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

tempted  on  the  other,  is  to  be  the  limit  of  our 
wishes."  Lastly,  *'  we  must  withdraw  the  mind, 
we  must  live  within  ourselves."  For  only  thus 
will  the  sage  be  undisturbed  by  the  whims  of 
Fortune.  And  if  the  worst  come  to  the  worst, 
and  the  sage  by  living  ''forfeit  his  independ- 
ence," the  door  stands  open,  ''life  is  easily 
taken." 

Bearing  in  mind,  then,  that  Epicureanism  and 
Stoicism  were  the  chief  constructive  theories 
upon  which  the  ancient  world  relied  before  the 
advent  of  Christianity,  we  must  ask,  How  about 
the  sufficiency,  the  availableness,  of  their  "gos- 
pels "  ? 

In  Epicurus'  own  teaching  pleasure  sinks  to 
the  level  of  a  means,  or  rather,  follows  as  a  re- 
sult of  a  man's  proper  conduct  of  his  life.  In 
short,  it  is  synonymous  with  a  certain  aggregate 
of  conditions ;  it  implies  a  serene  state  of  body 
and  mind  such  as  can  be  attained  only  by  shak- 
ing free  from  the  demands  which  society  and 
individuals  make  upon  character.  Accordingly, 
the  teaching  may  be  summed  up  by  saying  that 
pleasure  is  to  be  identified  with  happiness ;  that 
happiness  reposes  upon  freedom ;  and  that  free- 
dom is  open  only  to  the  wise  man  who,  in  his 
wisdom,  knows  how  to  obtain  it.  The  aim  of 
the  system  is  so  to  guide  a  man  that  he  may  be 
wise,  and  thus  become  aware  how  to  arrive  at 
mastery  over  the  means  to  happiness.  "Greeks 
seek  after  wisdom."  By  taking  thought  they 
would  add  a  cubit  to  their  stature,  by  searching 
they  would  achieve  a  godlike  calm,  if  not  God 
Himself.  Freedom  depends  upon  that  living 
which  is  "  an  art  in  some  degree  peculiar  and 
special  to  each  individual."  Accordingly,  to 
acquire  it,  one  must,  preeminently,  gain  insight 
— insight  into  the  circumstances  of  his  own  per- 


SALVATION    BY    WISDOM  87 

sonality.  When  this  condition  has  been  realized, 
and  only  then,  can  a  man  be  said  to  be  alive. 
The  kind  of  person  who  can  arrive  at  this  success 
is  the  "  wise  man  "  ;  he  who,  in  clear  conscious- 
ness of  all  that  he  is  doing,  subordinates  every 
consideration  to  the  attainment  of  freedom,  and 
through  it  of  a  negative  happiness  consisting  in 
the  absence  of  disturbance.  The  title  is  not 
bestowed  upon  him  because  he  is  good,  but  be- 
cause he  knows  how  to  live.  When  he  has  be- 
come fully  aware  that  there  is  nothing  to  disturb 
him,  then  he  is  de  facto  in  harmony  with  self. 
So  living,  he  has  earned  the  fruition  of  that  great 
peace  which  flows  from  a  continuous  limitation 
of  self  in  such  a  way  that  nothing  can  enter  in 
and  create  disturbance.  The  serenity  of  life  is 
its  goodness.  Not  morality,  not  self-sacrifice, 
not  interest  in  the  good,  but  unruffled  calm,  se- 
clusion, anxiety  for  completed  selfhood  are  the 
marks  of  the  wise  one.  Because  he  is  happy,  he 
is  virtuous ;  if  he  were  a  prey  to  fears,  his  vi- 
ciousness  would  stand  completely  proved. 

Apart  altogether  from  its  plain  inadequacy  as 
a  gospel,  apart  too  from  its  appeal  to  that  limited 
class  who  can  enjoy  the  requisite  opportunities 
for  the  necessary  quest,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  this 
strange  teaching  was  self-contradictory.  The 
pleasure  or  happiness,  the  freedom,  the  wise  man 
do  not  exist  in  human  experience,  for  the  excel- 
lent reason  that  they  cannot.  A  separated  per- 
sonality is  an  inherent  impossibility.  Independ- 
ence, in  the  sense  of  isolation  from  fellow-men 
and  from  the  world,  cannot  be  viewed  as  other 
than  a  mere  figment  of  the  imagination.  Our 
freedom  can  be  obtained  only  along  with  the 
freedom  of  others ;  happiness  can  be  enjoyed 
only  by  the  man  who  knows  how  to  unite  with  his 
neighbors;   individuality  in   all   its  fulness   can 


88  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

grow  to  its  perfect  stature  only  in  a  social  me- 
dium, with  its  duties  that  are  necessarily  attend- 
ant upon  rights.  Eliminate  all  needs,  discard 
all  social  relations,  and  you  may  indeed  develop 
independence.  But,  in  the  nature  of  the  case, 
it  is  a  mere  name.  It  contains  nothing,  turns 
out  to  be  a  form  without  substance ;  so  empty  is 
it  that  one  may  baptize  it  what  one  pleases. 
Make  a  desert  and  call  it  peace,  if  you  will,  but 
almost  any  title  will  fit.  In  the  same  way,  hap- 
piness which  is  no  more  than  self-dependence, 
contradicts  itself.  The  freedom  of  the  Epicurean 
consists  in  a  removal  of  all  restrictions,  and  is 
therefore  identical  with  a  permission  to  be  no- 
where. The  complete  command  over  life  which 
results  from  a  soul  limited  to  itself  turns  out  to 
be  a  bare  delusion.  Little  wonder,  then,  that 
despair  should  often  have  marked  those  who 
clung  to  it  for  comfort,  and  that  escape  from  self, 
in  a  series  of  momentary  pleasures,  should  have 
frequently  supplemented  or  distorted  the  original 
teaching.  All  that  it  promised  proved  to  be 
shadowy,  all  that  it  led  distracted  humanity  to 
hope  for  was  found  to  be  hollow,  and  so  moral 
suicide,  in  the  shape  of  debauchery,  oxfelo  de  se^ 
came  to  be  the  logical  consequences  of  perceiv- 
ing that  the  highest  conceivable  career  open  to 
man  was  a  mere  void — something  so  deceptive  as 
to  be  unworthy  of  pursuit.  To  '*  live  hidden  " 
may  be  an  excellent  motto  for  one  whose  life  is 
already  a  hopeless  failure,  it  is  worse  than  no 
direction  for  those  who  realize  that  man's  chief 
characteristic  centres  in  his  possession  of  a  soul 
that  7?mst  be  saved.  And  the  ancient  world 
gradually  came  to  see  that  this  resource  was  of 
no  avail. 

The  school  of  Zeno  was  more  scientific,  more 
anxious  to  prove  systematically  that  the  nature  of 


SALVATION    BY    WISDOM  89 

the  world  and  man  is  such  that  it  is  good  for  one 
to  be  alone.  Lacking  the  flexibility  of  Epicure- 
anism, it  started  with  a  first  principle  which 
could  be  applied  in  every  case.  To  attain  the 
ideal  of  independence — always  contemplated  by 
the  wise  man — it  is  of  the  last  importance  "to 
live  according  to  nature."  Stoicism  thus  reposes 
on  an  imaginative  account  of  nature  as  a  process 
of  a  reason  supposed  to  be  universally  operative. 
The  order  of  the  world  exhibits  its  chief  trait  in 
its  changelessness.  And  when  this  has  been 
fully  fathomed,  a  man  cannot  but  be  convinced 
that  one  definite  line  of  conduct  remains  open  to 
him.  6'<?^-control  grows  directly  from  i"<f^-per- 
suasion  that  this  universe  is  one  orderly  whole, 
proceeding  on  its  way  undeflected  by  aught  that 
happens.  To  perceive  this,  and  to  rise  superior 
to  the  changefulness  of  phenomena,  is  a  man's 
highest  mission.  When  he  has  the  necessary  in- 
sight, he  is  in  a  position  to  subdue  all  the  ills 
that  flesh  is  heir  to,  and  so  to  control  his  career 
that  they  cannot  touch  or  harm  in  all  his  holy 
mountain. 

But  the  question  comes  to  be.  How  is  this  in- 
dependence to  be  gained  ?  The  answer  was,  as 
we  saw,  By  the  extinction  of  passion.  The  pas- 
sions are  the  great  enemies  of  that  rational  per- 
ception which  alone  enables  a  human  being  to 
rise  to  the  dignity  of  his  nature  by  placing  him- 
self in  line  with  the  reason  that  governs  all 
things.  They  disturb  harmony,  or,  as  the  com- 
mon phrase  runs,  they  get  between  a  man  and  his 
wits.  One  must  therefore  deny  himself  all  the 
opportunities  that  life  affords,  he  must  denude 
his  being  of  all  the  conditions  that  usually  lead 
to  action,  for  thus,  and  only  thus,  will  his  reason 
have  free  course.  Like  Epicureanism,  this  doc- 
trine both  overbalances  itself  and  fails  to  furnish 


90  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

a  gospel  suited  for  the  mass.  How  are  the  father, 
the  mother,  the  child,  the  dutiful  citizen,  the 
soldier,  and  so  forth  to  retire  into  a  passionless 
self?  How  are  all  the  occasions  that  go  to  make 
up  a  human  life  to  be  blotted  out  ?  How  are  the 
vast  majority  of  the  human  race  to  put  themselves 
in  a  position  whence  they  can  develop  a  career 
of  contemplation?  The  thing  is  impossible. 
Once  more,  when  a  man  has  grown  to  wisdom, 
when  he  knows  how  to  remain  within  the  charmed 
circle  of  a  purely  rational  self,  into  what  does  he 
retire?  With  the  soul  swept  and  garnished — de- 
livered from  obligations  to  neighbors,  from  bodily 
impulse,  from  those  endless  interests  wherein  life 
is  so  rich,  what  is  left  ?  Plainly  nothing.  The 
moment  he  gains  unity  with  the  world-reason, 
the  wise  man  finds  that  his  agreement  is  with  a 
shade.  Having  emptied  himself  of  everything 
that  makes  life  life,  he  can  but  fall  into  despair. 
Indifference,  not  action,  turns  out  to  be  the  end 
for  which  he  has  worked  ;  he  may,  therefore,  con- 
template and  actually  carry  out  suicide  as  a  means 
of  escape  from  the  void,  to  reach  which  he  has 
sacrificed  everything.  Nay,  he  must  do  so.  For 
no  human  being  can,  in  the  nature  of  the  case, 
complete  the  process  of  extirpation  except  in 
death.  The  self  cannot  be  selfless  till  personality 
have  been  utterly  destroyed.  The  strength  of 
such  a  system  lay,  of  course,  in  its  protest  against 
the  follies  and  foibles  of  the  age.  It  was  effective 
as  a  criticism,  but  not  as  a  constructive  gospel. 
It  showed  men  many  wrongs,  forced  them  to  re- 
alize many  stupidities.  But  it  remained  negative 
just  where  positive  instruction  was  most  required, 
till  at  length,  as  we  shall  see,  some  of  the  positive 
characteristics  of  Roman  civilization  came  to  re- 
act upon  it.  To  be  informed  that  all  ills  flow 
from  a  preordained  collocation  of  circumstances, 


SALVATION    BY   WISDOM  9 1 

and  to  know  that  this  assemblage  could  not  have 
been  altered,  does  not  help  to  assuage  the  ills  that 
are.  And  to  inform  a  man  that  he  must  eliminate 
his  passions  in  order  to  conform  to  these  condi- 
tions, does  not  aid  liim  to  render  his  life  concen- 
tric to  a  new  ideal  and  so  to  transform  the  baser 
to  worthier  ends — the  great  secret  of  Christianity 
— but  rather  induces  him  to  evade  the  life  that 
now  is. 

From  whatever  standpoint  one  views  it,  salva- 
tion by  wisdom  was  a  failure.  Attainable  only 
by  the  wise  and  favored  of  the  earth,  it  fell  short 
of  that  immediate  and  universal  fitness  on  which 
all  influential  teachings  repose ;  it  furnished  no 
new  guide  to  a  course  of  action  in  a  specific  set 
of  circumstances ;  it  laid  down  abstract  rules  for 
a  life  which,  whatever  it  may  be,  is  certainly  not 
open  to  human  beings.  Setting  out  to  explain 
man's  complex  nature,  it  merely  invented  another, 
a  simple  nature,  by  expelling  one  group  of  the 
elements  with  which  it  found  itself  confronted. 
The  central  truth  is  that  the  individualistic 
schools,  being  limited  by  the  conditions  of  their 
time,  failed  to  fathom  the  meaning  and  implica- 
tions of  personality.  This  error  is  common  to 
them  with  the  whole  of  classical  civilization. 
They  forced  men  to  experience  their  "natural 
rights,"  but  they  could  not  picture  the  duties 
which  these  rights  entail.  Attenuated  by  the  de- 
mands of  the  city-state,  and  by  their  spirit  which 
still  survived  the  fall  of  the  Greek  polities,  the 
worth  of  a  human  soul,  its  depth,  richness,  and 
complexity  could  not  then  appear.  Much  less 
could  even  the  wisest  of  the  day,  with  the  re- 
sources at  their  command,  point  the  way  to  the 
perfect  life.  Having  stripped  the  citizen  of  all 
that  had  rendered  him  notable  as  an  organic  por- 
tion of  a  community,  the  new  schools  sought  to 


92  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

find  another  career  for  him ;  but  a  career  cannot 
be  made  out  of  negatives.  They  failed  to  per- 
ceive that  a  fresh  start  imperatively  demands  that 
fresh  initiative  which  only  an  entirely  changed 
conception  of  life — a  transformed  ideal  of  the 
scope  and  meaning  of  manhood — is  sufficient  to 
originate.  Seeking  to  free  men  from  the  ills  of 
the  age,  they  but  liberated  them  from  one  evil  to 
place  them  under  the  dominion  of  another.  So 
their  wise  man  remained  a  mere  conception ; 
their  doctrines  fell  short  of  profound  effect,  be- 
cause they  rendered  humanity,  miserable  enough 
already,  too  poverty-stricken.  They  took  away 
from  it  even  that  which  it  had.  And  without 
civic  place,  without  a  free  personality,  nothing 
remained  but  consistent  despair  or  complete  con- 
tempt for  a  life  that  asked  so  much  and  could  re- 
pay with  so  little.  By  an  acme  of  self-contradic- 
tion, the  career  which  is  so  worthy  may  easily  be 
ended.  The  deaths  of  Zeno,  Cleanthes,  Emped- 
ocles,  Cato  Minor,  of  Seneca  and  others  prove 
how  strangely  the  reality  conflicted  with  the  ideal. 
And  necessarily  so.  Complacency,  masquerading 
as  a  gospel,  inevitably  contradicts  itself,  for, 
when  it  becomes  missionary,  men  realize  that  the 
reasons  for  its  existence  have  already  disap- 
peared. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  MISSION  OF  THE  JEWS 

*«  What  advantage  then  hath  the  Jew  ?  or  what  is  the 
profit  of  circumcision  ?  Much  every  way :  first  of  all, 
that  they  were  intrusted  with  the  oracles  of  God." — Rom, 
iii.  I,  2. 

The  transition  from  Hellenic  to  Jewish  civili- 
zation brings  us  at  a  single  step  from  strange  to 
familiar  ground.  Nor  is  the  homelike  feeling 
we  experience  due  entirely  to  the  causes  that  most 
readily  suggest  themselves.  Not  our  familiarity 
with  the  narratives  of  the  Old  Testament,  not 
our  close  acquaintance  with  the  Ten  Command- 
ments, not  our  admiration  for  the  poetry  of  Job, 
our  sense  of  the  appropriateness  of  many  Psalms 
to  our  own  circumstances,  not  even  all  these  taken 
together  originate  this  sentiment  of  kinship. 
The  real  fact  is  that,  as  a  great  gulf  is  fixed  be- 
tween Christianity  and  the  Jewish  religion  from 
one  point  of  view,  another,  and  greater,  yawns 
between  these  religions  and  all  the  faiths  of  the 
pagan  world.  Amid  the  Jews  we  meet,  not 
merely  what  we  know — thanks  to  our  familiarity 
with  their  sacred  books — but  our  spiritual  kith 
and  kin.  In  approaching  any  one  of  the  other 
pre-Christian  religions  we  find  ourselves  compelled 
to  unmake  our  whole  experience,  and  so  we  are 
never  quite  sure  that  we  obtain  the  necessary 
perspective ;  after  all  our  efforts,  the  pagan  wor- 
ships remain  far  from  us,  their  atmosphere  is  so 
completely  different.     Nothing  enables  us  to  re- 

93 


94  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

alize  this  more  vividly  than  the  attitude  of  the 
Grseco-Roman  world  toward  Jews  and  Christians 
alike.  It  showed  equal  incapacity  to  understand 
either;  and  it  is  in  the  formative  qualities  com- 
mon to  both,  which  thus  blinded  later  classical 
civilization,  that  the  inner  relation  between  the 
two  spiritual  religions  is  to  be  sought.  This  total 
incapacity  of  the  Grseco-Roman  world  to  com- 
pass Judaism  and  Christianity  was  most  typically 
embodied  in  the  epithet  ''atheist"  impartially 
applied  to  both.  In  the  time  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire, when  antagonistic  peoples  had  so  far  become 
one  as  to  cease  from  war,  they  could  appreciate, 
if  by  no  more  than  a  thoughtless  acquiescence, 
the  conception  of  friendliness  or  indifference  be- 
tween the  gods  of  various  races.  But  in  lurid 
contrast  to  the  ''crowd  of  deities,"  satirized  by 
the  poet  Juvenal,  stood  Jehovah,  above  all  be- 
cause beyond  all.  His  worshippers  did  not  rep- 
resent Him — they  could  not  show  their  God — 
and  so  they  must  needs  be  atheists.  Moreover, 
Jehovah  claimed  to  be  the  only  true  God,  and 
His  people,  themselves  unable  to  perceive  the 
elements  of  good  in  paganism,  withdrew  from  the 
unclean  thing,  so  earning  the  universal  contempt 
and  hatred  of  Caesar's  subjects.  Precisely  the 
same  held  true  of  Christianity,  and  the  causes 
were  identical — they  lay  in  the  very  nature  of  the 
religions  themselves.  Both  equally  centred  in 
ideals  which  had  never  entered  into  the  pagan 
consciousness.  These  were  incalculable  by  the 
Roman  citizen,  for  he  possessed  no  measure 
whereby  he  might  have  appraised  them.  Further, 
man's  well-known  admiration  for  what  he  imper- 
fectly understands  easily  passes  over  into  hatred, 
and  in  this  case  the  transformation  was  inevitable. 
For  the  pagan  knew  by  experience  that  the  op- 
eration  of  these   two   faitlis  led  their  devotees  to 


THE    MISSION    OF   THE    JEWS  95 

contemplate  purposes  which  he  could  in  nowise 
fathom,  and  to  take  for  uttermost  reality  much 
that  he  deemed  quite  chimerical.  Why  not  wor- 
ship the  Emperor?  Why  not  cheerfully  enter 
into  the  whole  round  of  those  social  observances 
wlierein  religious  custom  played  so  large  a  part? 
What  solid  ground  could  there  possibly  be  for  re- 
fraining from  exercises  which  the  cultivated  knew 
for  mere  forms,  which  the  masses  loved  on  ac- 
count of  their  material  accompaniments?  No 
distributions  of  corn  !  No  displays  in  the  amphi- 
theatre !  The  thing  was  monstrous  !  So  to  the 
pagan  mind  Jew  and  Christian  came  under  a 
common  condemnation,  for  they  had  religious ^ 
not  simply  morale  reasons  for  preferring  death  to 
apostasy.  Moral  grounds  the  Stoics  and  others 
could  have  apprehended,  but  religious  scruples 
of  this  kind  originated  in  another  sphere  which, 
being  out  of  their  reckoning,  seemed  wholly  fan- 
tastic. It  might  be  a  palliation  of  Jewish  folly, 
as  Tacitus  thought,  that  such  accursed  habits  had 
descended  from  uncultured  ancestors ;  the  Chris- 
tian had  no  such  extenuation  to  plead.  Yet,  de- 
spite this  difference,  both  were  on  the  same  foot- 
ing when  it  came  to  a  succinct  statement  of  their 
misdeeds.  Did  they  not  alike  evince  "  a  hatred 
of  the  human  race"?  Yes,  the  religion  of  the 
Jews  is  familiar  to  us,  because  it  is  a  religion,  be- 
cause alone  among  the  pre-Christian  faiths  it 
deals  with  God.  The  mission  of  the  Hebrews 
in  universal  history  was  to  originate  and  preserve 
in  purity  the  conception  of  the  one  God  who  is 
the  Lord  of  the  whole  earth. 

Religion  as  we  moderns  know  it,  while  a  highly 
complex  thing  viewed  from  the  psychological  or 
individual  side,  becomes  even  more  complicated 
when  regarded  from  a  universal  or  race  stand- 
point.    At  least  four  life-streams  commingle  in 


g6  PREPARATION   FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

it.  From  Greece  it  largely  derives  the  concep- 
tion of  God's  manifestation  in  the  universe;  from 
Rome,  the  idea  of  God's  identical  relation  to  all 
men  everywhere ;  from  Teutonic  character,  the 
importance  of  God's  connection  with  every  man 
apart ;  from  the  Jews,  God  Himself.  And 
Hebrew  prophecy  supplied  the  means  whereby 
this  consciousness  first  fully  developed  itself.  It 
set  forth  the  explicit  recognition  of  God  as  God. 
The  attempt  to  trace,  even  in  outline,  Jewish 
progress  in  its  most  characteristic  sphere,  religion, 
would  be  out  of  place  here.  We  are  to  deal  only 
with  the  essential  contribution.  Yet  it  ought  to 
be  noted  that  the  problem  presents  a  very  curious 
and  instructive  parallel  to  that  of  Greek  culture 
which  has  just  been  before  us.  The  debt  to 
Hellenic  civilization  under  which  the  world 
labors  has  too  often  been  obscured  by  the  judg- 
ments of  Roman  writers  who,  just  because  they 
stood  so  near  some  Greeks,  cannot  be  implicitly 
trusted.  Tacitus  and  the  rest  mistook  the  Hel- 
lenistic for  the  Hellenic.  Consequently,  to  ar- 
rive at  a  just  estimate,  one  must  go  back  to  a 
time  when  the  Greeks  had  not  as  yet  become 
conscious  of  the  worth  of  a  human  being,  to  a 
period  when  that  universal  spirit,  which  made 
Plato  and  Aristotle  in  a  manner  the  only  true 
philosophers  before  Spinoza,  had  not  entered 
upon  the  stages  of  clear  disintegration  in  the 
teaching  of  Zeno  and  Epicurus,  and  of  obscurer 
transformation  in  the  Grseco-Roman,  semi- 
Platonic,  and  Grseco- Jewish  schools.  The  "  fleet- 
ing moment"  of  the  realization  of  the  Hellenic 
ideal  was  so  fleeting,  as  we  have  seen,  that  it  is 
hard  to  stop  it,  just  at  such  and  such  a  point,  for 
purposes  of  detailed  examination.  The  fervent 
city  patriotism  of  Pericles,  and  the  more  judicial, 
but  still  semi-enthusiastic,  reflections  of  Thucyd- 


THE   INIISSION    OF    THE   JEWS  97 

ides,  perhaps  mirror  it  best.  For  an  all  too 
brief  hour,  city  and  citizens  were  completely  at- 
tuned. There  was  no  state  except  in  the  citizens, 
no  citizens  save  as  organically  related  to  the 
state. 

Precisely  the  same  holds  true  of  the  Jews  when 
one  approaches  their  immortal  past.  By  our  very 
affinity  for  them  we  have  tended  to  depreciate 
them.  Judaism  has  frequently  been  taken  at  its 
lowest,  in  the  bickering  sects  of  the  time  of 
Christ,  and  so  its  absolute  value  in  the  sequence 
of  religious  evolution  has  come  to  be  evaporated. 
We  forget  that  "God's  ancient  people"  were 
God's,  and  that  the  promise  "to  the  Jew  first" 
still  remains  true.  There  has  been  a  strong  tend- 
ency toward  supposing  that  the  variety  of  atti- 
tude toward  Jehovah,  illustrated  in  the  Hebrew 
Bible,  could  be  most  characteristically  expressed 
in  one  way,  and  in  one  way  only.  The  in- 
dividuality of  God,  hermetically  sealed  up  within 
himself,  and  so  cut  off  increasingly  from  man 
and  from  the  universe,  has  been  the  too  exclusive 
representation  of  many.  The  insignificance  of 
man,  the  utter  insignificance  of  isolated  person- 
ality, and  the  judgment  that  the  earth  is  a  very 
little  thing,  are  the  deductions  usually  drawn 
from  this  view.  Gloominess  and  lack  of  atten- 
tion to  the  wonder  and  beauty  of  nature,  are 
often  supposed  to  mark  the  religion.  So,  too, 
formalism  is  held  to  reign  supreme.  The  means 
to  worship  became  the  end,  and  thus  touch  with 
God  was  lost.  Conviction  of  the  worthlessness 
of  life  accordingly  ensued,  and  man  was  cast 
back  upon  his  own  resources  in  utter  helplessness 
and  hopelessness.  In  other  words,  simply  be- 
cause it  stands  so  near  to  the  religion  of  the 
Jews,  Christian  opinion  has  identified  it  too  ex- 
clusively with    the   broken    fragments   that   sur- 


98  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

rounded  our  Lord,  in  the  shape  of  the  Pharisees, 
Sadducees,  and  the  rest.  This  is  a  great  error.  It 
will  not  suffice  to  assume  that  the  teaching  of  the 
"  straitest  sect  of  the  Pharisees  "  stood  for  the  re- 
ligious attitude  of  a  whole  people,  any  more  than 
it  would  be  just  to  infer  that  the  enormities  of 
Roman  emperors  and  their  favorites  exhausted 
the  moral  phenomena  of  the  later  classical  world. 
Despair — the  absence  of  ideals — finding  mo- 
mentary anodynes  in  cant  and  hypocrisy,  was 
not  the  only  feature  of  the  nation  whom  Titus 
broke  in  pieces  after  that  desperate  resistance. 
Rather  fanaticism  of  race,  based  on  a  deeply  jus- 
tifiable sense  of  superiority,  betrayed  the  pre- 
dominant temperament;  and  it  is  precisely  in 
the  roots  of  this  mastering  conviction — a  convic- 
tion that  still  energizes  in  some  sort  the  Western 
world  over — that  we  must  seek  the  ultimate  sig- 
nificance of  all  that  the  Jews  accomplished  for  the 
extension  of  man's  spiritual  insight.  The  cruci- 
fixion of  Christ  might  be  called  a  practical 
paradox,  one  of  those  ironical  situations  in 
history  which  are  ironical  by  the  fact  that  in  a 
circumscribed  case  they  reveal  universal  princi- 
ples that  inevitably  reverse  the  meaning  of  the 
isolated  occurrence.  If  the  Law  slew  God,  the 
Crucifixion  brought  Him  to  life  again. 

How,  then,  did  the  mission  of  the  Jews  reveal 
itself?  Where  must  we  lay  it  to  our  account  to 
discover  the  contribution  made  by  this  marvelous 
people  to  the  cause  of  universal  righteousness  ? 

Historical  personages,  semi -mythical  occur- 
rences, and  heroes  before  Agamemnon  there 
were  ere  Athens,  at  one  stroke,  rose  to  the 
heights  of  her  splendor,  her  power,  and  her 
deathless  glory.  Similarly,  before  the  prophets 
uttered  their  burning  words,  judges,  Moses  in  his 
idealized  atmosphere,  the  half-legendary  Abraham 


THE   MISSION    OF   THE   JEWS  99 

and  his  mighty  ancestors  of  the  Mesopotamian 
valley,  had  fought  their  fight.  But  the  uniqueness 
of  Israel,  all  that  her  people  were  destined  to 
achieve  for  the  world's  advance,  lies  enshrined  in 
the  visions  of  these  sad,  heroic  seers.  They 
gathered  up  Israel,  the  nation,  in  themselves,  just 
as  Pericles  and  Plato  were,  hardly  persons,  but 
rather  the  living  embodiment  of  operative  ideals. 
They  voiced  they  knew  not  what ;  for  they,  and 
they  only,  found  permanent  expression  for  the 
thoughts  of  the  dumb  thousands  whose  hearts 
leaped  within  them  as  they  heard  echoed  back  their 
own  inmost  yearnings.  Changes,  too,  emerged, 
traceable  even  in  the  magnificent  apostolic  suc- 
cession. To  DeuteroTsaiah  the  ideal  has  be- 
come an  object  of  reflection — something  so  defi- 
nite as  to  be  almost  surprised  into  superior  perfec- 
tion still — just  as  for  Plato  the  aroma  of  Greek 
civilization,  although  the  breath  of  his  nostrils, 
seemed  to  be  escaping  into  free  air ;  its  very 
value  impressed  him  with  the  urgent  necessity  for 
providing  new  means  of  preservation.  Yet,  not- 
withstanding the  Exile  and  the  plain  influence  of 
Persian  religion,  Deutero-Isaiah  remains  a  herald 
of  typical  Jewish  ideals,  in  the  same  way  as 
Plato  is  of  Greek,  despite  the  Peloponnesian  war 
and  the  uprising  of  the  faction  or  sectarian  spirit 
destined  so  soon  to  ruin  all.  With  Malachi,  as 
with  Aristotle,  the  vivifying  conceptions  stand 
bathed  in  the  light  of  the  afterglow.  It  avails 
nothing  in  either  case  to  seek  permanent  con- 
structive traits  in  the  individualist  schools — 
Epicureans,  Stoics — composed  of  men  desiring 
escape  from  the  invasions  of  a  fate  that  had  swept 
off  their  once  all-satisfying  civic  vocation,  or  in 
the  equally  individualist  sects — Pharisees,  Sad- 
ducees — debating  on  a  personal  immortality  that 
had  long  been  implicitly  assured  by  the  infinite 


lOO  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

nature  of  men  made  in  the  image  of  a  truly  in- 
finite God,  whose  service  gave  them  the  perfect 
national  freedom  which  lent  them  all  the  worth 
they  possessed.  The  Greek  developed  his  genius 
in  joy,  the  Jew  in  misfortune ;  and  in  both  in- 
stances alike  it  was  not  an  individual's  happiness 
or  an  individual's  sorrow  that  availed.  The  city 
dowered  her  citizen  with  her  delights  ;  the  nation 
poured  her  ills  upon  the  dwellers  in  Judea.  When 
Greek  and  Jew  knew  themselves,  and  developed 
an  isolated  personality,  joy  lost  its  charm,  suffer- 
ing missed  its  lesson.  To  the  prophets,  then,  we 
must  go,  and  go  with  open  ear,  willing  to  hear 
ere  essaying  to  judge. 

At  the  outset  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  what 
is  called  prophecy  must  be  regarded  as  a  ubiqui- 
tous phenomenon.  It  was  no  special  possession 
of  the  Jews,  not  even  of  the  Semitic  races  collect- 
ively. The  magicians  of  Chaldea,  the  wise  men 
of  Egypt,  the  various  ascetics  of  Hindustan,  the 
soothsayers  of  Philistia,  the  '*  prophets  of  Baal," 
all  come  under  the  description.  In  Greece, 
where  the  records  are  fuller,  and  our  acquaint- 
ance more  intimate,  perhaps  more  sympathetic, 
its  recurrence  is  familiar  and  often  sensibly  in- 
fluential. So  much  so  that  Plato — whose  business 
as  a  philosopher  was  to  explain  all  aspects  of  life 
— devotes  special  attention  to  it  in  his  most 
apocalyptic  dialogue,  and  sharply  distinguishes 
the  office  of  diviner  from  that  of  prophet.  "  No 
man,  when  in  his  senses,  attains  prophetic  truth 
and  inspiration  ;  but  when  he  receives  the  in- 
spired word,  either  his  intelligence  is  enthralled 
by  sleep,  or  he  is  demented  by  some  distemper  or 
possession.  And  he  who  would  understand  what 
he  remembers  to  have  said,  whether  in  dream  or 
when  he  was  awake,  by  the  prophetic  and  en- 
thusiastic  nature,    or   what   he   has   seen,   must 


THE    MISSION    OF   THE   JEWS  lOI 

recover  his  senses;  and  then  he  will  be  able  to 
explain  rationally  what  all  such  words  and  such 
apparitions  mean,  and  what  indications  they 
afford  to  this  man  or  that  of  past,  present,  or 
future  good  and  evil.  But  while  he  continues 
demented  he  cannot  judge  of  the  visions  which 
he  sees  or  of  the  words  which  he  utters;  the 
ancient  saying  is  very  true,  that  *  only  a  man  in 
his  senses  can  act  or  judge  about  himself  and  his 
own  affairs.'  And  for  this  reason  it  is  customary 
to  appoint  diviners  or  interpreters  as  discerners 
of  the  oracles  of  the  gods.  Some  persons  call 
them  prophets;  they  do  not  know  that  they  are 
only  readers  of  dark  sayings  and  visions,  and  are 
not  to  be  called  prophets  at  all,  but  only  inter- 
preters of  prophecy."  One  must  conclude,  ac- 
cordingly, that  Hebrew  prophecy  is  important, 
not  because  it  is  prophecy,  but  on  account  of  its 
peculiar  features.  Being  distinctive  or  unique, 
it  brought  a  new  element,  one  not  otherwise  con- 
tributed, to  the  spiritual  heritage  of  humanity. 

Like  all  other  great  men,  the  prophets  were  in 
one  sense  products  of  their  time.  Assyria  and 
Babylon  moved  them  to  utterance,  Israel  fur- 
nished the  theme.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  they 
returned  double  for  all  they  had  received.  Their 
own  personality  overflowed  the  inrushing  influ- 
ences, and,  transforming  them  to  a  new  purpose, 
wrought  something  entirely  individual,  something 
at  once  strange  and  familiar.  The  great  suc- 
cession from  Amos  to  Malachi  did  not  bring  forth 
a  single  philosopher.  No  attempt  to  theorize  the 
deity  appeared,  no  effort  to  regard  His  nature 
and  His  relation  to  His  people  from  a  speculative 
vantage-ground  stands  recorded.  The  pervading 
genius  was  entirely  religious,  never  metaphysical. 
In  other  words,  intuition  rather  than  reflection 
furnished  the  source  whence  the  divine  afflatus 


I02  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

poured  out.  The  materials  which  Israel  gener- 
ated, so  to  speak,  afforded  nothing  to  rationalize; 
there  was  much,  very  much,  to  tell.  Hence  the 
prophets  cannot  be  said  to  have  found  their  voca- 
tion in  foretelling.  Their  winged  words  witness 
to  the  constant  interaction  of  three  main  factors, 
factors  that  have  ever  effectually  energized  in 
mighty  spirits.  From  \\\^  present  they  cast  back 
glances  to  the  past^  but  not  with  blurred  vision, 
nor  to  the  entire  past.  By  one  flash  of  insight 
the  abiding  is  disengaged  from  the  transient. 
Thus  enlightened,  the  seers  yearn  themselves  into 
X\\t  future.  And  in  some  such  experience  of  un- 
fathomable need  their  telling  transfigures  itself 
into  foretelling.  For,  according  as  understand- 
ing of  past  and  present  deepens,  so  is  wisdom  for 
guidance  in  the  future.  The  central  hopes  did 
of  a  verity  find  realization,  because  the  central 
fears  were  so  trebly  grounded,  and  because  the 
single  remedy  stood  in  such  clear  light.  Out  of 
a  tremendous  faith  a  real  Deity  sprang  into  effec- 
tual being,  and  as  the  same  faith  underwent  re- 
juvenescence from  time  to  time,  the  Jews  con- 
trived to  lay  an  everlasting  burden  upon  mankind 
— to  fulfil  all  that  had  been  told ;  and  an  irre- 
deemable debt — perception  of  the  sole  conditions 
of  fulfilment. 

All  this  the  prophets  arrived  at  by  way  of  the 
nation.  To  allege  that  they  stated  nothing  more 
than  their  own  particular  impressions,  is  like  ac- 
counting for  Shakespeare's  men  and  women  by 
urging  that  they  were  his  creations  out  of  noth- 
ing, limited  by  his  own  hermetically  sealed  ideas. 
As  Assyria  and  Babylon  smote,  the  Jews  lost 
themselves,  and  instinctively  clung  together  for 
safety  at  first,  then  for  comfort.  The  prophets 
revealed  the  inner  principle  of  this  association. 
Jehovah  was  not  their  particular  deity,  but  the 


THE    MISSION    OF   THE   JEWS  I03 

God  of  the  whole  earth,  whose  ways  they  closely 
traced,  whose  fundamental  purposes  they  divined, 
whose  near  rule  stirred  their  finest  aspirations. 
No  word  manifested  him  to  them;  no  familiar 
spirit  whispered  his  intimations  in  their  ears  ; 
they  sketched  no  scheme  of  warlike  operations 
for  mundane  victory  and  deliverance.  All 
equally  bodied  forth  a  common  national  expe- ' 
rience,  all  alike  superadded  to  this,  though  in 
varying  degrees,  a  penetrating  judgment  upon  the 
nature  of  man  as  primarily  a  moral  and  religious 
being.  Through  them  the  crucifixion  of  Israel 
transformed  the  "chosen  people"  into  the 
Messiah  among  all  nations.  And  in  this  stupen- 
dous fact — which  the  Crucifixion  completely  ob- 
scured at  the  moment,  and  still  largely  conceals 
— we  must  perforce  seek  the  final  inwardness  of 
Judaism.  Above  all,  it  is  essential,  in  trying  to 
appraise  the  Jewish  genius,  to  put  away  Greek 
philosophical  conceptions.  For,  armed  with 
them,  we  are  certain  to  fail  in  our  estimate  or  to 
do  injustice  ;  precisely  as,  were  we  to  approach 
the  Greek  genius  with  Hebraic  presuppositions, 
we  should  inevitably  misunderstand  Hellenic 
paganism  in  tofo,  and  Roman  legalism  in  part. 

The  prophets,  then,  perceived  once  and  for 
ever  that  man's  highest  humanity  centres  in  and 
converges  upon  deity.  Not,  however,  upon  a 
tribal  god,  but  upon  the  God  of  the  whole  earth. 
By  intuition  they  attained  what  Plato  half-poetic- 
ally  thought,  what  Plutarch  most  pathetically 
longed  for  and  attempted  to  build  up  out  of  the 
beggarly  elements  that  lay  scattered  confusedly 
around  in  the  first  Christian  century.  Nor  can 
this  religious  intuition  of  theirs  be  regarded  as  a 
bare  piece  of  unorganized  sentiment.  Such  was 
its  mastering  power  that  it  immediately,  if  un- 
consciously, enlisted  the  eager  services  of  will 


104  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

and  reason.  The  ideal,  felt  at  first,  became  clear 
with  almost  perfect  clearness  by  the  interaction 
of  reason,  and  gained  a  consecration,  equalled 
only  in  some  of  the  finest  Christian  lives,  by  the 
operation  of  will.  If  men  who  are  men  cannot 
but  weep  together  and  triumph  together  over  the 
fortieth  chapter  of  Isaiah,  they  cannot  but  per- 
ceive the  truth  of  the  fifty-fifth  as  to-day  realized 
fact :  "Behold,  thou  shalt  call  a  nation  that  thou 
knowest  not ;  and  a  nation  that  knew  not  thee 
shall  run  unto  thee,  because  of  the  Lord  thy  God, 
and  for  the  Holy  One  of  Israel ;  for  he  hath 
glorified  thee;  "  they  cannot  but  work  together 
for  the  building  into  life  of  that  city  of  God 
which,  though  still  the  one  far  off  divine  event, 
first  entered  into  the  human  heart  through  the 
hidden  wisdom  of  Isaiah  of  Babylon.  So  work- 
ing, too,  his  promise  holds  good  for  all  even  in 
this  widely  different  generation  :  '*  They  shall 
not  labor  in  vain,  nor  bring  forth  for  calamity  : 
for  they  are  the  seed  of  the  blessed  of  the  Lord, 
and  their  offspring  with  them.  And  it  shall 
come  to  pass,  that  before  they  call,  I  will  answer  : 
and  while  they  are  yet  speaking,  I  will  hear. 
The  wolf  and  the  lamb  shall  feed  together,  and 
the  lion  shall  eat  straw  like  the  ox :  and  dust 
shall  be  the  serpent's  meat.  They  shall  not  hurt 
nor  destroy  in  all  my  holy  mountain,  saith  the 
Lord."  The  rationale  of  the  religion  of  Israel, 
the  contribution  it  has  rendered  to  universal 
spiritual  growth,  cannot  be  evaporated  by  any 
subtlety  of  metaphysic  or  of  criticism  from  the 
old,  old  promise — itself  a  prophecy,  because  of  its 
strange  and  marvelously  suggestive  fulfilment : 
**  In  thy  seed  shall  all  the  families  of  the  earth 
be  blessed." 

Thus  the  central  import  of  the  Jewish  religion, 
when   it   is   brought  to  occupy  its  place  in  the 


THE   MISSION   OF   THE   JEWS  1 05 

developing  whole  of  the  providential  scheme, 
does  not  lie  in  any  metaphysical  estimate  of  its 
logical  quality.  To  label  the  Jews  ''legalistic," 
and  so  to  convict  them  of  religious  incapacity,  is 
not  far  removed  from  the  amiable  delusion  of  the 
Greeks,  that  they  must  be  irreligious.  Logical 
they  were  not,  as  we  occidentals  understand 
logic ;  yet  they  had  unexampled  consistency,  and 
in  the  measure  of  this  lies  the  root  of  their  uni- 
versally meaningful  doings.  Their  eternal  mes- 
sage— the  unity  of  God  and  the  oneness  of  real 
manhood  with  Him — transcends  our  philosophical 
and  logical  makeshifts  altogether.  For  Judaism 
is  not  to  be  estimated  in  terms  of  its  apparent 
close  in  the  groups  of  bickering  secretaries,  but 
by  that  portion  of  it,  once  its  all  in  all,  which 
to-day  lives  as  an  essential  element  in  even  the 
most  Christian  character,  and  must  ever  continue 
thus  vitally  energizing.  The  veritable  revelation 
impressed  upon  heathen  civilization  at  the  time 
of  the  Dispersion  may,  indeed,  have  ceased  to  be 
a  revelation  now.  But  this  is  traceable  to  its 
character  as  originally  such.  It  has  been  in- 
corporated in  a  larger  life,  and  persists  as  an  in- 
dispensable element  in  that  more  spacious  revela- 
tion ever  manifesting  itself  from  age  to  age  in 
the  deeds  of  all  the  world's  true  workers.  The 
conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  occurs  in  a 
phrase  familiar  enough  :  **  The  word  of  the  God 
of  Israel  endureth  forever."  A  word  spoken, 
no  doubt,  in  many  ways,  but  a  God  first  fully 
comprehended  by  the  prophets  and  finally 
revealed  by  the  spiritual  insight  of  their  spoken 
word. 

While  this  interpretation  might  be  further  em- 
phasized and  variously  illustrated  by  reference 
to  the  Psalms  and  to  the  Messianic  expectation, 
did  space  permit,  a  few  remarks  regarding  its  in- 


Io6  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

fluence   on   the  view  we  must  take  of  the  Law 
may  be  permitted. 

A  life  thus  reposing  upon  explicit  recognition 
of  the  authority  of  a  holy  God  could  not  fail  to 
be  of  moral,  as  well  as  of  religious,  import. 
Unlike  Greek  ethics,  Jewish  morality  issues  from 
self-denial,  even  though  the  self  be  identified 
with  the  ''chosen"  people.  So,  after  a  sort, 
Hebrew  "legalism"  was  never  really  legalistic ; 
for  it  depended  upon  a  perception  that  the  earth 
is  the  Lord's.  Morality,  that  is,  operates  in  no 
finite  world,  but  by  its  very  nature  partakes  es- 
sentially in  the  divine.  At  its  worst,  Judaism 
imposes  endless  ceremonial  detail,  striving  to  at- 
tain the  ^Wiwthy  2. progressus  ad  wfinituvi  ;  at 
its  best  it  envisages  the  spirit  of  the  one  code 
that  testifies  to  the  secret  source  of  moral  purity. 
In  the  former  case,  individualistic  or  sectarian 
tendencies  hold  mastery ;  in  the  latter,  national. 
Or,  to  put  it  otherwise,  the  legalism  which  so 
many  Christians  frequently  associate  with  Juda- 
ism— ceremonialism — is  not  characteristic  or 
representative  any  more  than  Cynicism  was 
typical  of  Athenian  ethical  teaching.  It  is  not 
so  much  Jewish  as  specifically  bound  up  with 
some  Jewish  sects.  Whereas  true  legalism  is  not 
in  this  sense  legalistic,  but  constitutes  the  codi- 
fied expression  of  an  inner  national  perception  in 
ethics,  a  perception  that  the  Jews  themselves 
never  altogether  lost, — one,  too,  that  Western 
civilization  never  altogether  gained  till  after  the 
Reformation,  even  if  it  can  be  said  to  have 
grasped  it  now.  In  a  spiritual  regard,  the  Jew 
was  the  lawgiver  to  the  universe,  as  was  the 
Roman  juridically ;  for  he  had  achieved  the 
height  whence  he  could  see  that  no  genuine 
morality  is  possible  apart  from  a  certain  attitude 
of  heart.     From  prophetic  times  his  moral  as- 


THE   MISSION   OF   THE   JEWS  I07 

sociations  were  the  associations  apart  from  which 
morality  in  fuhiess  cannot  exist.  So  much  so, 
that  men  who  prate  about  moral  advance  in 
these  days  are  but  slowly  recovering  what  the 
Jews  always  had.  And  this  ethical  insight  which 
renders  the  Jew  the  moral  revealer,  as  well  as 
the  God-giver,  to  humanity  was  intimately  bound 
up  with  Israel's  contribution  to  religious  advance. 
Selfishness  it  is  that  separates  between  God 
and  man.  Through  man's  falling  away  to  self- 
regard,  evils  smite  the  people.  For  this  same 
selfishness  is  the  divider  between  a  man  and  his 
better  self,  and  especially  between  men  and  their 
neighbors.  To  this  truth  the  Law,  in  its  first 
purity,  gave  expression.  Men  learn  to  escape 
this  danger  in  proportion  as  they  remember  the 
profound  reasons  for  honoring  father  and  mother, 
for  respecting  the  rights  of  fellows.  In  brief, 
the  organic  connection  between  rights  and  duties 
becomes  plain.  The  Ten  Commandments  set 
forth  a  solidarity  of  human  interest,  convey  an  ex- 
plicit recognition  of  the  interdependence  between 
the  individual  and  his  social  environment,  which 
the  modern  world  at  this  late  hour  begins  to  ac- 
claim as  if  it  were  a  new  evangel.  And  this,  be  it 
noted,  is  the  characteristic  legalism  of  the  Jews — 
a  moral  purity,  not  a  ceremonial  rectitude.  Here, 
then,  Jewish  ethics  have  gifted  something  emi- 
nently tangible  to  the  moral  stock  of  mankind  at 
large.  The  ethical  influence,  indeed,  may  be  nowise 
comparable  with  the  religious,  and  therefore  may 
not  always  receive  adequate  recognition.  At  the 
same  time,  the  two  are  inseparable.  Through 
his  God-consciousness,  the  Jew,  first  of  all  men, 
rose  to  a  conception  of  morality  which  savored 
nothing  of  self-culture,  self-shaping,  self-suffi- 
ciency, but  everything  of  that  self-denial  and  self- 
abasement  wherein  a  people  sent  up  a  shudder- 


Io8  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

ing  sob  from  the  depths  of  sin  to  the  heights  of 
realization  and  perfection  whereon  its  God  sat 
enthroned.  This  is  the  permanent  lesson  of  the 
so-called  "legalism,"  and  it  must  be  learned  by- 
all  men  the  world  over.  Jewish  ceremonialism 
was,  in  truth,  transitory;  Jewish  "legalism"  is 
eternal,  for  in  it  man  first  perceived,  and  in  one 
way  finally  perceived,  why  the  universe  of  mo- 
rality is  identical  in  principle  with  the  wider 
worlds  of  humanity  and  nature  which,  together 
with  it,  constitute  the  organic  whole  known  as 
human  experience. 

To  disengage  the  mission  of  the  Jews  from  the 
incidents  of  history  which  often  lead  off  to  side 
issues,  it  were  well  to  remember  that  even  the 
visions  of  prophets,  sentimental  as  they  may 
sometimes  seem,  often  suggest  truths  that  even 
the  subtlest  reasoning  is  apt  to  miss.  The  insight 
of  Ezekiel,  mere  dream  as  it  appears,  affords  an 
excellent  starting-point  for  calculation  of  the 
debt  owed  by  universal  religion  and  morals  to  a 
despised,  misunderstood,  and  rejected  commu- 
nity. "And  it  shall  come  to  pass,  that  every 
living  creature  which  swarmeth,  in  every  place 
whither  the  rivers  shall  come,  shall  live;  .  .  . 
and  everything  shall  live  whithersoever  the  river 
Cometh."  This  river  flows  from  Jerusalem,  "  the 
Mother  of  us  all." 

As  the  mission  of  the  Jews  was  distinctively- 
religious,  so  too  was  their  genius.  And  it  may- 
be well  to  inquire,  by  way  of  conclusion,  what 
the  exact  implications  of  this  statement  are.  It 
is  the  more  necessary  to  weigh  the  question  be- 
cause tendencies  to  confuse  it  with  other  consid- 
erations are  by  no  means  uncommon. 

A  man's  view  of  the  world,  like  his  interpre- 
tation of  human  life,  may  be  dominated  by  one, 
or  by  a  combination,   of  three   main  interests, 


THE   MISSION    OF   THE   JEWS  I09 

each  of  which  presents  special  features  that 
clearly  mark  it  off  from  the  others.  Science, 
Philosophy,  Religion  form  this  trio.  The  su- 
preme function  of  Science  is  to  resolve  physical 
effects  into  physical  causes.  In  the  language  of 
Science,  a  phenomenon  is  held  to  be  ''ex- 
plained" when  the  assemblage  of  antecedent 
conditions  that  produce  it  is  fully  understood, 
and  the  inter-relationship  of  all  completely  laid 
bare.  Science,  therefore,  points  to  the  presence 
of  an  outer  world,  supposed  to  be  cut  off  from 
mind.  Philosophy,  while  cognate  with  Science 
as  an  attempt  to  understand  the  reasons  why  such 
and  such  events  occur,  is  differentiated  by  the 
emphasis  which  it  lays  upon  the  presence,  power, 
and  operation  of  mind.  It  refuses  to  contem- 
plate the  possibility  of  two  universes — a  mental 
and  a  physical — each  proceeding  on  its  way  in 
total  disregard  of  the  other.  Here  the  search 
comes  to  be,  not  for  causes,  but  for  underlying 
principles,  in  the  absence  of  which  even  physical 
antecedents  that  suffice  to  explain  the  occurrence 
of  phenomena  would  not  be  comprehensible  by 
the  human  intellect.  The  one  discipline  con- 
centrates itself  upon  "  matter,"  the  other  upon 
"reason."  So  far  they  differ,  and  sometimes 
even  collide.  But  they  agree  in  a  certain  in- 
difference to  explanations  which  human  nature 
might  conceivably  luish  to  be  true  or  sufficient. 
Or,  if  you  choose  so  to  put  it,  they  ignore  desire, 
affection,  and  will.  Religion,  on  the  contrary, 
centres  conspicuously  just  in  these  elements. 
"God  made  man  in  his  own  image."  Man,  to 
be  man,  must  be  a  person;  and  personality  is  of 
the  essence,  not  perhaps  of  God  as  "  very  God," 
but  assuredly  of  God  as  He  stands  revealed  to 
us.  Deity  ruling  in  the  realm  represented  by 
man's  highest  ideals,  in  the  one  sphere  where  his 


no  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

most  cherished  hopes  can  be  realized ;  Deity 
sanctioning  and  requiring  observance  of  those 
moral  duties  and  religious  obligations  without 
which  the  divine  or  holy  life  cannot  grow  from 
more  to  more  upon  this  earth  ;  Deity  as  Himself 
embodying  all  that  men  have  conceived  of  per- 
fection and  an  infinity  beyond — these  are  the 
operative  conceptions  with  which  the  very  exist- 
ence of  religion  cannot  but  be  bound  up. 

With  all  this  in  remembrance,  the  point  par- 
ticularly to  be  noted  is  that  the  Jews  alone  of 
pre-Christian  peoples  rose  to  a  realization  of  all 
that  is  implied  in  religion  ;  and  although  this 
appreciation  came  to  be  distorted  and  stunted  in 
the  course  of  history,  it  was  and  must  always  re- 
main adequate  in  principle.  With  them,  the 
master  wrong  was  not  the  error  of  the  scientific 
man,  not  the  false  logic  of  the  philosopher,  but 
that  sense  of  sin,  of  personal  defect  or  falling 
away,  which  presupposes  a  will  able  to  act  right- 
eously, and  a  righteous  God  pointing  the  more 
excellent  way,  and  giving  systematic  warning 
about  the  inevitable  consequences  of  unfaithful- 
ness. Needless  to  say,  the  sense  of  sin  is  in  di- 
rect ratio  to  the  standard  whereby  it  must  be 
judged,  and  this,  in  turn,  stands  most  intimately 
associated  with  the  kind  of  deity  revealed  to 
man.  When  the  god  is  a  mere  idealized  human 
being,  as  with  the  Greeks,  a  tendency  to  invest 
him  with  the  faults,  even  with  the  peccadillos 
and  foibles,  of  his  worshipper,  makes  itself  man- 
ifest, and  with  disastrous  results.  If  the  deity 
be  but  an  abstract  quality,  or  a  supervisor  of 
certain  special  relations  in  life,  he  sits  loose  to 
character  as  a  whole,  or  a  mere  bribe  suffices  to 
enlist  his  interference  at  the  appropriate  junc- 
tures. In  all  cases  equally,  conviction  of  sin 
cannot   come  to  maturity.     But  Jehovah  was  a 


THE    MISSION    OF   THE   JEWS  III 

personal  God,  possessed  of  distinctive  character- 
istics through  and  through,  holiness  being  chief- 
est  among  them.  He  already  was  all  that  man 
could  hope,  or  ought,  to  be.  His  guardianship 
and  approval  were  the  one  thing  needful  for  re- 
ality of  life.  His  perfection  induced  a  deep- 
seated  appreciation  of  the  fact  that  even  man's 
best  could  not  but  be  bad.  Yet,  through  the 
medium  of  religion,  even  such  a  God  can,  and 
does,  cooperate  with  man.  And  so  the  most 
self-abased  people  the  world  has  ever  seen  was 
also  the  most  optimistic.  For  if  this  God  were 
on  their  side,  who  could  prevail  against  them  ? 
Nay,  despite  history,  who  has  prevailed  against 
them? 

Thus  the  mission  of  the  Jews  was  to  contribute 
to  humanity  an  adequate  conception  of  God,  and 
a  vivid  perception  of  the  conditions  under  which 
alone  pure  religion  can  exist.  They  saw,  once 
for  all,  that  personal  holiness  provides  the  sole 
productive  environment  of  happiness.  For  to 
them  a  man's  chief  end  is  to  be  as  perfectly 
righteous  as  God.  The  Deity  and  His  worship- 
per appear  as  persons,  as  willing  agents,  work- 
ing with  one  another  in  unity  of  purpose  for 
escape  from  sin  and  progress  in  righteousness. 
"Create  in  me  a  clean  heart,  O  God;  and  re- 
new a  right  spirit  within  me."  Here  is  a  solu- 
tion of  religious  problems  that  comes  very  near 
being  final.  The  method  of  creation  truly  was 
not  yet,  but  Creator  and  created  are  both  appre- 
hended from  what  is,  to  all  intents  and  purposes, 
the  only  admissible  point  of  view.  To  the  Jew- 
ish eye  God  first  directly  revealed  the  ray  of  His 
light ;  it  remained  for  the  heart  of  mankind  to 
feel  its  warmth.  "This  is  the  covenant  that  I 
will  make  with  the  house  of  Israel  after  those 
(lays,  saith  the  Lord  ;  I  will  put  my  law  in  their 


112  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

inward  parts,  and  in  their  heart  will  I  write  it." 
For  the  sealing  of  this  covenant  One  was  needed 
in  Whom  the  promise  should  cease  to  be  an  an- 
ticipated ideal  and  should  become  a  realized  fact. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   ADVENT   OF   THE    SAVIOUR 

"  The  things  which  are  impossible  with  men  are  possible 
with  God." — Luke  xviii,  27. 

The  four  centuries  and  a  half  intervening  be- 
tween the  last  of  the  prophets  and  the  advent  of 
our  Lord  were  mainly  marked  by  most  momen- 
tous changes  in  the  religious  and  social  condition 
of  the  Jewish  people.  In  one  word,  the  religion 
of  Israel  disappeared  and  Judaism  stepped  into 
its  place ;  Israel  of  the  twelve  tribes  was  forgot- 
ten, Judah  remained  alone.  Speaking  generally, 
it  may  be  said  that  these  profound  alterations  ac- 
companied three  great  events  in  Jewish  history, 
and  were  partly  precipitated  from  them.  First, 
the  Captivity  of  the  Ten  Tribes  who  came  to  be 
absorbed  among  the  **  heathen";  the  captivity 
of  Judah,  whose  two  generations  of  intimate  con- 
tact with  the  conquerors  served  to  transform 
many  ancient  customs  and  to  originate  some  new 
ones.  Second,  the  Return,  first  under  Zerub- 
babel,  then  under  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  when  re- 
ligious and  social  tendencies  previously  unknown 
or  only  incipient  received  that  definite  shape  des- 
tined never  to  depart  completely.  Third,  the 
'*  Hellenizing  "  of  the  civilized  world  by  Alex- 
ander the  Great  and  his  successors — especially  of 
Palestine  by  Antiochus  Epiphanes.  To  each  of 
these  fateful  occurrences  we  must  turn  for  a  mo- 
ment, in  order  to  trace  their  chief  consequences. 
A  satisfactory  conception  of  the  political  and 
"3 


114  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANINY 

social  surroundings  amid  which  Christ  appeared 
depends  upon  some  knowledge  of  the  preceding 
years. 

(i)  The  effects  of  the  Exile  may  be  treated 
with  comparative  brevity.  For  while  it  is  ob- 
vious that  proximity  to  the  heathen  peoples, 
familiarity  with  their  customs,  and  a  general 
learing  of  their  beliefs  cannot  have  remained 
without  mark  upon  Jewish  life  and  character,  the 
knowledge  necessary  for  a  final  determination  of 
the  resultant  changes  is  not  yet  altogether  in  our 
possession.  We  are  just  beginning  to  command 
the  sources  of  requisite  information,  and  our 
mastery  over  the  details  which  must  have  marked 
the  connection  between  conquerors  and  con- 
quered still  stands  incomplete.  It  lacks  intimacy 
and  vitality.  But  apart  altogether  from  problems 
relating  to  the  passage  of  heathen  doctrines  and 
usages  into  distinctively  Jewish  civilization — 
which  must  be  dismissed  here — it  is  not  hard  to 
picture  the  more  prominent  features,  to  draw  con- 
clusions regarding  the  tendencies  that  must  have 
emerged  in  the  nature  of  the  case. 

Israel  as  a  nation  conceived  itself  to  be  conse- 
crated by  Jehovah.  His  worship  and  ordinances 
were  its  care  and  its  prerogative.  The  Jews  had 
developed  clear  consciousness  of  this  ere  the 
great  disasters  of  their  middle  period  overtook 
them.  They  knew  that  their  all  consisted  in 
Jehovah's  favor,  that  their  history  was  nothing 
less  than  the  record  of  His  divine  manifestation, 
that  in  Him  centred  their  hopes  for  a  better  and 
glorious  future.  Their  most  distinctive  trait  lay 
in  their  intense  conviction  that  they  were  a  peo- 
ple set  apart.  This  belief  cannot  but  have 
wrought  upon  them  in  many  new  ways  when 
they  suddenly  found  themselves  cut  off  from  the 
old  opportunities  for  legitimate  worship,  and  per- 


THE    ADVENT    OF    THE    SAVIOUR  I15 

force  brouglit  into  closest  contact  with  religious 
observances  which  the  stricter  among  them  at 
least  must  have  abominated  with  their  whole 
souls.  As  they  came  to  feel  the  full  pressure  of 
the  unwonted  situation,  two  problems  definitely- 
presented  themselves,  and  means  for  their  solu- 
tion had  to  be  devised.  Of  these,  the  first  was 
the  preservation  in  complete  purity  of  the  tradi- 
tional worship  which  had  been  concentrated  upon 
and  duly  provided  fur  by  the  temple  at  Jerusalem. 
The  other  was  how  to  stave  off  the  contamination 
which  intercourse  with  the  heathen  was  in- 
evitably calculated  to  produce.  To  the  former 
an  answer  would  be  comparatively  simple  were  a 
class  of  men  forthcoming  who  could  be  trusted 
as  ''specialists,"  so  to  speak,  in  the  faith  and 
rites  once  delivered  to  the  saints.  The  only  pos- 
sible solution  for  the  latter  lay  in  the  strong  de- 
velopment and  strict  observance  of  customs 
whereby  the  Jews  would  be  marked  off  from 
their  Gentile  neighbors  ;  from  common  allegiance 
to  which  they  would  derive  mutual  support ;  by 
knowledge  of  which  they  would  order  their  lives 
after  a  fashion  conspicuously  their  own.  In 
brief,  the  new  circumstances  put  a  premium  upon 
the  growth  of  specialized  tradition  and  of  dis- 
tinctive custom.  This  crystallization  in  process 
of  time  came  to  sharpen  that  sense  of  isolation 
and  of  possession  of  a  peculiar  mission  which  al- 
ready existed  in  something  more  than  germ  prior 
to  the  deportation.  Any  careful  reader  of  the 
Prophets  can  learn  for  himself  what  all  this 
implies  by  considering  chapters  forty  to  forty- 
eight  of  Ezekiel,  and  noting  how  they  contrast 
with  earlier  prophetic  utterances.  The  interest- 
ing feature  is  that  external  accessories  of  religion 
are  here  beginning  to  assume  the  importance 
previously  associated  with  internal  disposition  of 


Il6  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

heart.  When  we  attempt,  then,  to  represent  to 
ourselves  the  general  alteration  produced  by  the 
exile  in  the  religious  and  social  condition  of  the 
Jews  who  remained  Jews — and  many  of  them 
lasped  into  heathenism — we  may  put  the  case 
somewhat  as  follows.  The  kingdom  had  passed 
away  practically  forever  ;  Palestine  and  its  peo- 
ple had  ceased  to  be  a  political  organization — 
one  marked,  of  course,  by  a  specialized  religion 
— autonomous  civil  government  was  no  longer  to 
be  included  among  their  prerogatives.  In  place 
of  this,  they  were  on  the  way  to  become  some- 
thing totally  different.  Theocracy  formed  their 
future  destination — that  is  to  say,  what  once  was 
a  nation,  civilly  considered,  had  just  begun  to 
transform  itself  by  slow  gradations  into  a  purely 
religious  structure.  It  was  not  welded  any  more 
by  dynastic  considerations,  but  by  worship,  by 
adoption  of  strange  practices  which,  in  turn, 
stood  most  intimately  related  to  religious  beliefs 
and  sanctions.  Power  came  to  pass  from  kings 
to  priests  and  to  those  associated  with  them  in 
their  sacred  duties.  Interest  in  civil  constitu- 
tion, and  in  a  localized  territory,  now  concen- 
trated itself  upon  sacrifice,  upon  the  due  service 
of  Jehovah,  above  all  upon  Jerusalem  as  the  sole 
place  where  the  appropriate  rites  could  be  cele- 
brated. The  people  were  to  be  governed  so  that 
life  might  prove  a  means  of  grace ;  understand- 
ing of  the  duties  prescribed  to  this  end  became  a 
prerequisite  to  proper  service  of  God  ;  a  special 
class  conceived  itself,  or  was  believed,  to  be  the 
depository  of  this  knowledge.  Hence  the  system 
was  destined  to  develop  into  a  rule  of  priests,  or 
other  accredited  representatives  of  Jehovah's  be- 
hests. This  is  the  gist  of  the  situation  as  far  as 
one  can  gather  from  the  institutions  expounded 
by  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  and  solemnly  taken  over 


THE   ADVENT    OF    THE    SAVIOUR  II7 

by  the  body  of  the  people  shortly  after  the  final 
Return.  Such  were  the  causes  that  must  have  led 
to  tlie  growth  of  this  fresh  tendency  so  far  as  it  is 
now  possible  to  infer. 

(2)  Just  as  during  the  period  of  the  Exile  these 
tendencies  were  incubating  and  perhaps  tenta- 
tively asserting  themselves,  so,  after  the  Return, 
they  came  to  be  fully  developed,  and  their  col- 
lective results  provided  the  foundation  for  a  great 
system  which  ultimately  pervaded  and  regulated 
every  detail  of  life.  These  alterations,  as  was  in- 
evitable, also  give  rise  to  numerous  and  conspicu- 
ous social  changes.  The  overt  beginnings  of 
these  movements  are  traceable  in  the  events 
which  happened  after  the  Jews  of  the  Return 
fairly  settled  themselves  for  good  in  the  old  coun- 
try. The  first  labor  of  the  community  was  the 
rebuilding  of  the  temple.  After  many  vicissitudes 
this  task  was  brought  to  a  close  in  516  B.C.  Of 
the  changeful  chances  special  to  such  a  time  the 
most  important  and  far-reaching  in  its  conse- 
quences was  Zerubbabel's  refusal  of  permission 
to  the  remnant  of  the  ten  tribes  to  participate  in 
the  hallowed  work.  This  repulse  originated  the 
antagonism  between  Jews  and  Samaritans  so  prev- 
alent in  our  Lord's  time.  The  Samaritans,  as 
they  came  to  be  termed,  were  also  worshippers 
of  Jehovah ;  but  not  having  passed  through  the 
trials  of  exile,  the  tendencies  toward  elaboration 
of  religious  custom  did  not  effect  them.  They 
clung  to  the  simpler  and  easier  worship  of  pre- 
exilian  times.  As  a  consequence,  they  furnished 
a  convenient  harbor  of  refuge  for  such  of  the  im- 
migrant Jews  as  did  not  approve  the  newer  Law, 
with  its  many  absorbing  duties  and  its  continu- 
ous, nay  sometimes  cruel,  interference  with  com- 
mon life.  In  other  words,  their  presence  reacted 
upon   the   stricter   community   at  Jerusalem  by 


Il8  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

enabling  it  to  purge  itself  unwittingly  from  ele- 
ments of  discord,  and  so  to  isolate  itself  more 
effectively  from  the  surrounding  "  heathen." 

Those  who  had  returned  with  Zerubbabel  re- 
mained a  feeble  and  disheartened  folk  for  two 
generations.  The  realities  of  the  situation  fell 
lamentably  short  of  their  high  expectations.  The 
great  future  designed  for  Jehovah's  people  seemed 
further  off  than  ever,  and  many  of  His  worship- 
pers, their  ideal  thus  dimmed,  intermarried  with 
the  heathen  who  had  entered  upon  the  land  dur- 
ing the  Exile  ;  this  was  but  an  outward  evidence 
of  serious  internal  lapses.  So  far  had  the  evil 
spread  that  the  very  priests  were  contaminated. 
Indeed,  the  danger  of  absorption  amid  the 
* '  strange  nations  ' '  actually  threatened.  Accord- 
ingly, clamant  necessity  arose  for  the  Jews  to 
purge  themselves.  The  opportunity  for  this  fresh 
development  presented  itself  in  the  year  458  B.C., 
when,  by  permission  of  Artaxerxes,  Ezra  traveled 
to  Palestine,  accompanied  by  reinforcements,  so 
to  speak.  Thirteen  years  later  Nehemiah  under- 
took a  similar  journey  armed  with  Artaxerxes' 
leave  to  put  the  shattered  defences  of  Jerusalem  in 
proper  repair.  These  two  men — Ezra,  the  scribe, 
the  "expert"  in  matters  of  religion,  and  Nehe- 
miah, the  leader  clothed  in  the  authority  of  the 
"  Great  King  " — were  destined  to  be  the  re-crea- 
tors of  the  Jewish  faith.  Under  them  what  is 
known  as  Legalism  was  finally  drafted  and  erected 
into  a  working  system  that  became  the  mainstay 
of  Jewisli  theocracy.  The  need  for  purification, 
with  isolation  as  corollary,  propelled  their  efforts. 
**Now  while  Ezra  prayed,  and  made  confession, 
weeping  and  casting  himself  down  before  the 
house  of  God,  there  was  gathered  together  unto 
him  out  of  Israel  a  very  great  congregation  of 
men  and  women  and  children  :   for  the  people 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  SAV.OUR      II9 

wept  very  sore.  And  Shecaniah  the  son  of  Jehiel, 
one  of  the  sons  of  Elam,  answered  and  said  unto 
Ezra,  We  have  trespassed  against  our  God,  and 
have  married  strange  women  of  the  peoples  of  the 
land  :  yet  now  there  is  hope  for  Israel  concerning 
this  thing.  Now  therefore  let  us  make  a  covenant 
with  our  God  to  put  away  all  the  wives,  and  such 
as  are  born  of  them,  according  to  the  counsel  of 
my  lord,  and  of  those  that  tremble  at  the  com- 
mandment of  our  God ;  and  let  it  be  done  ac- 
cording to  the  law.  Arise ;  for  the  matter  be- 
longeth  unto  thee :  ...  be  of  good  courage, 
and  do  it."  After  the  people  had  thus  purged 
themselves,  it  was  possible  to  proceed  with  the 
enactment  of  the  whole  Law.  The  account  given 
in  Nehemiah  is  picturesque  and  effective  :  "  And 
all  the  people  gathered  themselves  together  as  one 
man  into  the  broad  place  that  was  before  the 
water  gate.  .  .  .  And  Ezra  the  priest  brought 
the  law  before  the  congregation,  both  men  and 
women,  and  all  that  could  hear  with  understand- 
ing ;  .  .  .  and  the  ears  of  all  the  people  were  at- 
tentive unto  the  book  of  the  law ;  .  .  .  and  they 
bowed  their  heads,  and  worshipped  the  Lord  with 
their  faces  to  the  ground ;  .  .  .  and  the  Levites 
caused  the  people  to  understand  the  law.  .  .  . 
And  they  read  in  the  book  of  the  law  of  God  dis- 
tinctly ;  and  they  gave  the  sense,  so  that  they 
understood  the  reading.  .  .  .  Now  in  the  twenty 
and  fourth  day  of  this  month  the  children  of 
Israel  were  assembled  with  fasting,  and  with  sack- 
cloth, and  earth  upon  them.  And  the  seed  of 
Israel  separated  themselves  from  all  strangers, 
and  stood  and  confessed  their  sins,  and  the 
iniquities  of  their  fathers."  A  new  covenant  was 
thus  made  with  Jehovah.  "Behold,  we  are  thy 
servants  this  day,  and  as  for  the  land  that  thou 
gavest  unto  our  fathers  to  eat  the  fruit  thereof, 


120  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

behold,  we  are  thy  servants  in  it.  And  it  yieldeth 
much  increase  to  the  kings  whom  thou  hast  set 
over  us  because  of  our  sins  :  also  they  have  power 
over  our  bodies,  and  over  our  cattle,  at  their 
pleasure,  and  we  are  in  great  distress.  And  yet 
for  all  this  we  make  a  sure  covenant,  and  write 
it ;  and  our  princes,  our  Levites,  and  our  priests, 
seal  unto  it.  .  .  .  Thus  cleansed  I  them  from  all 
strangers,  and  appointed  wards  for  the  priests  and 
for  the  Levites,  every  one  in  his  work ;  and  for 
the  wood  offering,  at  times  appointed,  and  for 
the  first-fruits." 

The  main  difference  between  the  older  religion 
of  Israel  and  the  Judaism  founded  in  the  manner 
just  related,  centres  in  the  fact  that  the  latter  re- 
posed more  upon  written  ordinances.  This  consti- 
tuted the  point  of  departure  for  a  complete  separa- 
tion between  the  masses  and  the  class  ''learned  in 
the  Law,"  who  alone  were  equipped  to  furnish 
the  instruction  indispensable  to  legal  purity.  For 
many  years  after  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  their  work 
remained  in  process  of  slow  consolidation ;  op- 
position to  their  tendencies  and  behests  gradually 
disappeared,  with  the  result  that  a  regular  hier- 
archy, composed  of  priests  and  men  learned  in 
the  Law,  ruled  the  Jewish  people,  whose  single 
right  became  more  and  more  that  of  obedience ; 
the  hierarchy  consequently  grew  to  be  a  realized 
fact.  Necessarily,  too,  the  constituent  members 
of  this  strange  state  separated  themselves  with 
growing  exclusiveness  from  other  tribes,  felt  with 
clearer  consciousness  that  they  were  set  apart, 
prided  themselves  increasingly  upon  their  peculiar 
privileges,  and  so  came  to  be  less  and  less  in- 
clined to  brook  any  interference  with  them. 
Under  the  instruction  of  the  priests  the  Jew  was 
now  finally  destined  to  "  Remember  the  law  of 
Moses,  Jehovah's  servant,  commanded  unto  him 


THE   ADVENT    OF   THE    SAVIOUR  121 

in  Horeb  for  all  Israel,  even  statutes  and  judg- 
ments. Behold,  I  will  send  you  Elijah  the 
prophet  before  the  great  and  terrible  day  of  the 
Lord  come.  And  he  shall  turn  the  heart  of  the 
fathers  to  the  children,  and  the  heart  of  the  chil- 
dren to  their  fathers ;  lest  I  come  and  smite  the 
earth  with  a  curse."  In  this  theocratic  organiza- 
tion the  nation  as  a  whole  lost  its  ancient  liber- 
ties; new  burdens  for  the  support  of  religious 
ordinances  were  thrust  upon  it,  and  an  endless 
round  of  duties,  many  of  them  unknown  hitherto, 
gradually  crystallized  themselves  about  almost 
every  act  of  daily  life.  But  just  on  account  of 
this  ever  present  sacrifice  and  perpetual  service, 
men  learned  to  value  more  and  more  highly  the 
benefits  they  enjoyed  at  such  great  price.  The 
Law  shielded  them  against  outer  paganism  and, 
for  the  good  of  mankind  be  it  said,  preserved  in- 
tact the  proplietic  conception  of  a  personal  God 
whose  holiness,  justice,  righteousness,  and  loving- 
kindness  were  finally  to  redeem  the  world.  Need- 
less to  say,  all  this  was  the  slow  work,  first  of  the 
Exile,  then  of  the  centuries  which  intervened 
between  the  Return  and  the  absorption  of  Pales- 
tine into  the  empire  of  Alexander  the  Great. 

(3)  The  story  of  post-exilian  transformations, 
the  tale  of  the  relation  between  Greek  civilization 
and  the  Jews,  is  a  matter  of  generations.  It  be- 
gan in  332  B.  c.  and  ended,  after  a  manner,  in 
6^  B.  c,  when  the  Holy  Land  finally  fell  into 
the  wide  stream  of  Graeco-Roman  conquest  and 
culture.  For  our  present  purpose  events  till  the 
year  i68  b.  c.  may  be  suppressed,  with  one  sig- 
nificant exception.  Of  the  monarchs  between 
Alexander  the  Great  and  Antiochus  Epiphanes 
many  were  swayed  by  the  conception  of  inter- 
national comity,  a  natural  accompaniment  of 
their  sense  for  empire.     Accordingly,  the  Jews 


122  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

were  as  a  rule  regarded  with  favor,  mainly  be- 
cause they  stood  potentates  in  good  stead  as  a 
connecting  link  between  various  Eastern  and 
semi -Occidental  peoples.  Jewish  colonies  be- 
came dispersed  all  over  Syria,  Asia  Minor,  and 
in  Egypt  they  flourished  especially.  This  was 
the  origin  of  the  Diaspora  or  Dispersion  which, 
as  we  shall  see,  was  destined  to  be  so  influential 
in  the  spread  of  nascent  Christianity.  But,  set- 
ting aside  this  feature  meanwhile,  it  may  be  said 
that,  from  the  rise  of  Alexander  the  Great  till 
the  time  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes,  Judaism  was 
still  chiefly  occupied  with  its  own  consolidation. 
The  priesthood  who  serve  Jehovah's  altar,  the 
scribes  who  give  instruction  in  His  law,  continue 
to  gain  firmer  and  firmer  footing,  and  the  organ- 
ized security  of  the  religious  system  expresses 
itself  in  the  heightened  dignity  attached  to  the 
office  of  high  priest : — 

How  glorious  was  he  when  the  people  gathered  round 

him 
At  his  coming  forth  out  of  the  sanctuary  ! 
As  the  morning  star  in  the  midst  of  a  cloud, 
As  the  moon  at  the  full ; 
As  the  sun  shining   forth   upon   the   ternple  of  the  Most 

High, 
And  as  the  rainbow  giving  light  in  clouds  of  glory ; 
As  the  flower  of  roses  in  the  days  of  new  fruits. 
As  lilies  at  the  water  spring, 
As   the    shoot   of  the    frankincense    tree  in  the  time  of 

summer ; 
As  fire  and  incense  in  the  censor, 
As  a  vessel  all  of  beaten  gold 
Adorned  with  all  manner  of  precious  stones ; 
As  an  olive  tree  budding  forth  fruits, 
And  as  a  cypress  growing  high  among  the  clouds. 
When  he  took  up  the  robe  of  glory, 
And  put  on  the  perfection  of  exaltation. 
In  the  ascent  of  the  holy  altar 
He  made  glorious  the  precinct  of  the  sanctuary. 


THE    ADVENT   OF   THE    SAVIOUR  1 23 

And  when  he  received  the  portions  out  of  the    priests' 

hands, 
Himself  also  standing  by  the  hearth  of  the  altar, 
His  brethren  as  a  garland  round  about  him, 
He  was  as  a  young  cedar  in  Libanus; 
And  as  stems   of  palm  trees  compassed  they  him  round 

about, 
And  all  the  sons  of  Aaron  in  their  glory, 
And  the  Lord's  offering  in  their  hands, 
Before  all  the  congregation  of  Israel. 
And  finishing  the  service  at  the  altars, 
That  he  might  adorn  the  offering  of  the  Most   High,  the 

Almighty, 
He  stretched  out  his  hand  to  the  cup, 
And  poured  of  the  blood  of  the  grape ; 
He  poured  out  at  the  foot  of  the  altar 
A  sweet-smelling    savor   unto  the  Most   High,  the  King 

of  all.i 

As  a  rule,  the  sway  of  the  foreign  despots  was 
mild  as  despotism  then  went ;  from  time  to  time 
the  peculiar  privileges  of  the  Jews  were  con- 
firmed, and  the  theocracy  attained  some  consid- 
erable civil  as  well  as  strictly  ecclesiastical  au- 
thority. The  hammering  destined  still  more 
completely  to  isolate  the  judaized  Jews  from  the 
rest  of  the  world  was  a  thing  of  the  future.  The 
coming  trials  indeed  were  to  form  a  necessary 
discipline.  For  just  as,  but  for  Ezra,  the  rem- 
nant that  returned  might  have  lapsed  into  heath- 
enism, so  but  for  the  high-handed  intervention 
of  Antiochus  Epiphanes  in  religious  affairs,  the 
international  character  of  Eastern  civilization 
after  the  death  of  Alexander  the  Great  might 
have  seriously  endangered  Jewish  particularism  ; 
the  God-idea  might  have  been  exposed  to  con- 
tamination. But  in  the  year  i68  b.  c.  Antiochus 
Epiphanes  took  Jerusalem,  and  proceeded  to 
abolish    all    distinctively   Jewish    customs.     He 

'  Ecclesiasticus,  lv,  5-15. 


124  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

caused  sacrifice  to  be  offered  to  Jnpiter  upon  the 
great  altar  dedicated  to  Jehovah — this  was  the 
"abomination  of  desolation  "  of  the  Jews;  he 
forbade  the  practice  of  any  Jewish  rites,  and 
prohibited  all  peculiarly  Jewish  customs,  such  as 
circumcision  and  the  keeping  of  the  sabbath. 
By  his  orders  every  roll  of  the  Law  that  could  be 
secured  was  destroyed.  His  plain  purpose  was 
to  transform  the  Jews  into  pagans  by  main  force 
of  administrative  command. 

This  was  more  than  the  people  could  endure, 
and  rebellion  broke  out  under  the  leadership  of 
the  Hasmonseans,  whose  most  famous  scion  was 
Judas  Maccabeus.  In  three  years  to  a  day  the 
struggle  had  been  brought  to  successful  issue, 
and  the  outraged  temple  was  once  more  solemnly 
dedicated  to  Jehovah.  Our  present  interest, 
however,  lies  not  so  much  in  these  stirring  events 
as  in  their  results.  Persecution  roused  opposition, 
success  bred  fanaticism ;  then,  as  always,  the 
blood  of  the  martyrs  was  the  seed  of  the  Church. 
As  a  consequence,  Church  and  State  were  to  be 
practically  one  for  a  hundred  and  thirty-one 
years  under  the  various  members  of  the  Has- 
monaean  dynasty.  As  the  decades  rolled  by,  the 
aristocratic  class  tended  to  become  more  and 
more  influenced  by  foreign  civilization,  particu- 
larly by  Greek  culture,  while  the  Church  gained 
power  by  imbuing  the  common  people  with  the 
*'idea  of  God  and  the  Law"  through  the  in- 
fluence of  those  popular  teachers  so  well  known 
to  us  under  the  name  Pharisees.  To  put  the 
situation  in  a  word,  vicissitudes  once  more  came 
to  the  rescue,  and  Judaism  flourished  amain  amid 
misfortunes  and  threatenings  of  heathen  domi- 
nation. 

These  being  the  collateral  causes,  what  now  of 
the  conquerors   in  the  struggle  with  Antiochus 


THE    ADVENT    OF    THE    SAVIOUR  1 25 

Epiphanes?  What,  in  other  words,  were  the 
religious,  social,  and  ethical  movements  that  led 
up  to  the  condition  of  Palestine  when  Christ  ap- 
peared ?  Several  outstanding  features  completely 
foreign  to  the  social  cone  eptions  which  modern 
civilization  has  rendered  quite  familiar  must  be 
kept  prominently  in  view.  Notwithstanding  the 
reign  of  Herod  the  Great,  who  was  believed  by 
his  contemporaries — Gentile  rather  than  Jewish — 
to  be  the  first  monarch  in  the  Eastern  world,  it 
may  be  said  that,  during  the  period  immediately 
connected  with  our  Lord's  life,  the  Jews  were 
politically  a  subject  race.  Herod's  friendship  for 
the  Roman  masters  was  little  distinguishable  from 
sycophancy.  And  at  the  birth  of  Christ  even 
the  show  of  independence  retained  by  him  had 
finally  passed  away.  This  political  subjection 
was  not  without  important  internal  results.  Un- 
disturbed by  questions  of  high  policy,  the  Jew- 
ish ruling  classes  found  themselves  able  to  devote 
exclusive  attention  to  ecclesiastical  and  social 
affairs.  They  had  every  opportunity  to  trans- 
form their  people  into  a  close  religious  corpora- 
tion. Thanks  to  their  intense  and  tragic  attach- 
ment to  Jehovah's  worship,  they  perfected  an 
ecclesiastical  organization  which  still  remains 
without  precise  parallel.  The  ideal  of  the  Phari- 
sees— to  create  a  nation  devoted  solely  to  religious 
interests — thus  met  with  circumstances  pecul- 
iarly favorable  to  its  realization  ;  and  in  so  far 
as  any  ideal  can  be  completely  realized,  it  may 
be  admitted  that  this  one  was.  Moreover,  the 
comparatively  small  remnant  of  the  orthodox  Jews 
no  longer  inhabited  an  extended  kingdom — one 
never  bigger  than  Massachusetts  even  in  David's 
time.  The  phrase,  '*  from  Dan  to  Beer-sheba," 
possessed  no  meaning  now.  Judea  proper  was 
the  home  land,  and  owing  to  its  restricted  hmits, 


126  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

oversight  of  the  entire  life  of  the  inhabitants 
presented  few  difficulties,  while  the  comparative 
proximity  of  all  to  Jerusalem  kept  the  great  re- 
ligious festivals  fresh,  not  merely  as  pious  mem- 
ories, but  by  the  actual  participation  of  many. 
The  synagogues  freely  scattered  over  the  country 
furnished  every  opportunity  for  acquirement  of 
direct  knowledge  concerning  Jehovah's  desires 
and  commands.  At  this  time,  then,  thanks  to 
the  causes  already  discussed,  the  descendants  of 
the  Jews  who  had  wrung  religious  immunity  from 
Antiochus  Epiphanes  were  thoroughly  homogene- 
ous, completely  cut  off  from  other  nations  of  the 
Roman  Empire  by  their  customs,  while  their 
limited  numbers  and  narrow  territory  rendered 
the  maintenance  of  a  highly  specialized  ecclesias- 
tico-social  organization  very  simple  as  such  things 
go.  So  far  the  body ;  the  spirit  next  claims  our 
attention. 

During  the  lapse  of  four  centuries  and  a  half 
religion  and  society  had  come  to  be  ruled  by 
that  highly  elaborated  system  known  as  the  Law. 
The  numerous  regulations,  prescribed  principally 
in  the  books  of  Deuteronomy  and  Leviticus, 
formed  the  basis  for  the  working  code,  and  it 
must  be  remembered  that  these  rules,  sufficiently 
exhaustive  and  exhausting,  were  in  full  daily 
operation.  Nor  was  this  all.  In  the  course  of 
generations  the  written  Law  had  been  ever  and 
increasingly  expanded  by  the  commentaries  and 
interpretations  added  to  the  original  documents 
by  the  scribe  class — now  known  as  the  Pharisees. 
Taken  as  a  whole,  they  embodied  a  continuous 
and  amazingly  painstaking  effort  to  create  a  code 
which  would  provide  direction  for  every  situation 
in  life — social,  moral,  religious.  And  as  the 
occasions  sprung  upon  man  by  life's  chances  are 
endless,   so  the  prescribed  directions  tended  to 


THE   ADVENT   OF   THE   SAVIOUR  1 27 

become  innumerable.  So  minute  had  they  grown 
that  a  Jew  found  himself  face  to  face  with  one 
or  another  literally  at  every  turn.  Worse  than 
all,  if  he  transgressed  in  one,  he  was  held  guilty 
of  breaking  the  whole  Law.  In  such  circum- 
stances, a  sense  of  oppression  and  a  fear  of  trans- 
gression could  never  be  far  from  him.  Yet 
knowing  that  by  observance  of  all  these  precepts 
the  favor  of  Jehovah  was  to  be  won,  he  could 
even  rejoice  in  his  bondage  : 


Oh  how  I  love  thy  law  ! 

It  is  my  meditation  all  the  day. 

Thy  commandments  make  me  wiser  than  mine  enemies  ; 

For  they  are  ever  with  me.  .  .  . 

I  have  refrained  my  feet  from  every  evil  way, 

That  I  might  observe  thy  word.  .  .  . 

How  sweet  are  thy  words  unto  my  taste ! 

Yea,  sweeter  than  honey  to  my  mouth  ! 

Through  thy  precepts  I  get  understanding: 

Therefore  I  hate  every  false  way.  .  .  . 

Thy  testimonies  I  have  taken  as  an  heritage  for  ever ; 

For  they  are  the  rejoicing  of  my  heart. 


Enthusiasm  for  a  life  right  with  God,  percep- 
tion of  the  plain  path  toward  goodness,  no  mat- 
ter in  what  unwonted  dilemma,  were  thus  guarded 
and  nurtured,  and  it  is  unquestionable  that,  thanks 
to  the  Law  thus  elaborated,  the  moral  condition 
of  the  Jews  was  immeasurably  superior  to  that  of 
the  surrounding  pagan  peoples.  Yet  the  con- 
sciousness of  bondage,  so  keenly  experienced  and 
so  strongly  expressed  by  that  Pharisee  of  the  Phari- 
sees, St.  Paul,  and  a  vague  feeling  as  if  of  in- 
justice, when  every  legitimate  effort  to  abide  in 
the  right  way  failed  to  stave  off  transgression, 
could  not  but  prevail  with  many.  To  this  the 
Pharisees  themselves  testify  :  "  This  multitude 
that    knoweth    not   the   law  are  accursed."     If, 


128  PREPARATION   FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

then,  in  its  preservation  of  the  God-idea,  in  its 
inculcation  of  moral  strenuousness,  in  its  pro- 
vision of  a  social  horizon  bounded  only  by  re- 
ligious and  ethical  interests,  the  Law  proved  its 
strength,  it  also  engendered  numerous  defects 
which,  in  their  immediate  results,  were  rapidly 
tending  to  outweigh  even  such  excellencies. 

As  we  have  already  seen,  the  Jews  looked 
down  upon  their  pagan  fellow-subjects  in  the 
Roman  Empire,  and  upon  their  political  masters. 
They  were  supremely  conscious  that  to  them  the 
oracles  of  God  had  been  committed.  Religious 
pride  of  this  sort  was  typified  by  the  Pharisees  in 
our  Lord's  time,  as  we  are  well  aware  from  His 
words.  It  embodied  an  attitude  justifiable  on 
two  grounds  only.  If  the  pride  be  not  accom- 
panied by  a  sense  of  one's  own  perfection,  it 
may  be  so  far  legitimate.  With  the  Pharisees 
any  such  reservation  seems  to  have  been  but  a 
remnant.  **  God,  I  thank  thee,  that  I  am  not  as 
the  rest  of  men,  extortioners,  unjust,  adulterers, 
or  even  as  this  publican,"  would  appear  to  illus- 
trate their  usual  attitude.  Once  more,  this  sense 
of  superiority  may  be  justified  if  it  find  supple- 
ment in  a  fiery  zeal  for  missionary  work.  But 
with  the  Jews,  the  disposition  to  this  was  elemen- 
tary or  absent.  Their  unique  hold  upon  their 
national  history,  and  their  perception  of  its  im- 
plications blinded  them  to  everything  else.  They 
possessed  a  mission  which  they  regarded  as  their 
prerogative,  and  they  evinced  but  slight  anxiety 
that  others  should  share  its  privileges  with  them. 
When  they  made  converts,  it  was  churlishly,  and 
with  many  reservations  directed  toward  safeguard- 
ing their  special  rights  as  God's  children.  Their 
general  attitude  towards  men  of  alien  faith  was 
one  of  uncompromising  opposition,  of  uncon- 
cealed horror,  if  not  of  positive  hatred,  as  many 


THE    ADVENT    OF    THE    SAVIOUR  1 29 

passages  scattered  impartially  through  canonical 
and  apocryphal  books  show. 

Shut  up  thus  within  themselves,  the  Jews 
gravitated  more  and  more  towards  externalism  in 
religion,  and  the  Law  was  the  great  motive-force 
operating  in  this  direction.  The  central  and  in- 
ward principle  of  righteousness  tended  to  be  in- 
creasingly obscured  beneath  the  ever  accumulat- 
ing mass  of  petty  precepts.  Ceremony  and 
rite,  with  their  outer  observances,  came  to  stand 
in  place  of  that  inner  purity  so  grandly  preached 
by  the  prophets.  Little  wonder  that  the  issue 
turned  out  a  sorry  thing  enough.  The  resultant 
morality  was  ecclesiastical,  not  human,  much  less 
divine.  Offerings  in  support  of  the  temple 
service  blotted  out  neglect  of  nearest  and  dearest. 
Attention  to  the  punctilios  of  external  custom 
served  to  make  a  man  holy,  were  he  never  so  un- 
faithful in  the  common  relations  of  life ;  heart- 
lessness  and  deceit  were  excused  by  rigid  atten- 
tion to  the  superficial  details  connected  with  the 
fossilized  ritual  of  ecclesiastical  service.  Hon- 
esty, gentleness,  industriousness,  faithfulness  in 
business  availed  nothing  apart  from  professions 
of  faith,  the  utterance  of  long  prayers,  and  the 
practice  of  many  ceremonies.  Thus  that  inward 
moral  tendency,  that  attitude  of  the  soul  toward 
God  and  the  good,  which  operates  as  a  principle 
hallowing  all  life,  became  lost ;  it  formed  no 
part  of  the  inherited  traditions.  The  mere 
mechanism  of  holiness,  supplied  from  an  external 
source,  took  the  place  of  personal  conviction, 
devotion,  conscientiousness.  The  possibility  of 
conversion — that  change  of  heart  which  renders 
an  entire  character  concentric  to  new  purposes, 
and  transforms  the  whole  meaning  of  life,  read- 
justing the  works  that  ought  to  be  done,  and 
those   that   must   be   left   undone — was  stamped 


130  PREPARATION   FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

out.  The  Jewish  people  were  now  treading  the 
aimless  round  of  a  circle  of  complicated  rules, 
the  spirit  of  which  is  not  to  be  traced  in  any  of 
their  constructive  religious  books.  And  yet, 
when  the  word  "people"  is  used,  certain  reser- 
vations require  to  be  made. 

We  know  that  the  common  people  heard  Christ 
gladly.  This  implies,  first,  that  complete  blind- 
ness to  the  principles  of  spiritual  religion  had 
not  overtaken  them  ;  second,  that  they  felt  the 
oppressive  burden  beneath  which  they  staggered ; 
third,  that  there  were  others,  not  of  the  com- 
monalty, who  listened  with  no  such  joy.  The 
first  and  second  points  may  be  admitted  at  once. 
It  is  contrary  to  every  record  of  history,  contrary 
to  human  nature,  that  in  an  entire  nation,  no 
matter  how  small,  every  individual  should  be 
moulded  alike.  Moreover,  as  the  Law  was  no 
more  than  the  shell  that  kept  the  precious  kernel 
of  the  sense  of  a  personal  and  ethical  God  intact, 
there  must  have  been  those  who,  guided  by  the 
higher  moral  ideas  that  lay  latent  among  the 
Jews,  were  so  far  prepared  to  respond  to  truly 
spiritual  instruction.  On  the  second  point,  the 
general  unrest  that  marked  Jewish  life  at  the  time 
witnesses  to  a  feeling,  if  not  of  dissatisfaction, 
then  of  incipient  perception  of  the  unstable 
equilibrium  incident  to  the  prevalent  regime. 
Half-conscious,  perhaps  unconscious,  this  idea 
may  have  been;  it  harbored  there,  awaiting  its 
prophet.  As  to  the  third  point,  the  Gospels  sup- 
ply information  enough  and  to  spare.  Those  in 
authority,  and  especially  those  who,  unlike  the 
priests  and  Sadducees,  had  close  relations  with 
the  whole  body  of  the  people — the  Pharisees, 
namely — were  so  completely  given  over  to  idoli- 
zation of  the  Law,  and  so  eaten  up  with  pride  in 
their  own  self-righteousness,  based  on  the  assur- 


THE   ADVENT    OF   THE    SAVIOUR  I31 

ance  of  due  attention  to  its  precepts,  that  they 
were  deaf  to  the  entreaties  even  of  a  Christ. 
Hillel,  who  lived  a  generation  before  Jesus,  was 
an  exception,  and  we  know  tliat  even  he  was  too 
good  for  his  contemporaries.  He  spoke  too 
plainly:  "Who  seeks  fame  loses  fame;  who 
does  not  increase  in  learning  decreases ;  who 
does  not  teach  is  worthy  of  death ;  who  uses  the 
crown  of  learning  for  his  own  ends  perishes;  " 
or,  perhaps,  like  our  Lord  Himself,  he  spoke  too 
subtly:  "  If  I  am  not  for  myself,  who  is  for 
me?  and  if  I  am  for  myself,  what  am  I?  and  if 
not  now,  Avhen  ?  "  But  of  all  the  symptoms — ex- 
cepting now  the  omnipresent  Law — which  affected 
the  people  of  the  day,  the  most  important  was 
the  Messianic  expectation. 

The  Jews  who,  as  has  been  remarked,  possessed 
historical  sense  almost  entirely  lacking  among 
the  other  nations  of  antiquity — the  Augustan 
Romans  conspicuous  by  exception — understood 
the  pervading  purpose  of  their  national  story, 
and  expressed  their  knowledge  most  characteristic- 
ally in  the  hope  that,  at  some  time,  a  deliverer 
would  arise  whose  genius  was  destined  to  place 
them  in  the  position  to  which  their  office  as  the 
chosen  people  entitled  them.  This  expectation 
formed  a  peculiar  feature  of  Israel  for  centuries, 
the  prophets  having  begun  to  familiarize  men  with 
it  so  early  as  the  eighth  century  before  Christ. 
As  was  natural,  it  varied  much  in  intensity  dur- 
ing the  long  intervening  stretches,  now  being 
dimmed  or  in  abeyance,  bursting  forth  anon  with 
increased  force  or  with  richer  coloring.  One  of 
these  eras  of  renewed  anticipation  happened  to 
be  ushered  in  several  generations  before  the  birth 
of  Christ,  when  John  Hyrcanus  (135-105  b.  c.) 
occupied  the  office  of  high  priest — years  when 
the  Jews  were  yet  again  beset  by  foreign  fues. 


132  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

The  books  of  the  IMaccabees,  the  Blessing  of  Saul, 
the  Psalter  of  Solomon,  and  others  remain  to 
bear  witness  to  the  presence  and  general  character 
of  this  latest  ebullition  of  hope  :  '*  Behold,  O 
Lord,  and  raise  up  their  king  the  son  of  David 
at  the  time  that  Thou  hast  appointed,  to  reign 
over  Israel  Thy  servant ;  and  gird  him  with 
strength  to  crush  unjust  rulers ;  to  cleanse  Jeru- 
salem from  the  heathen  that  tread  it  under  foot, 
to  cast  out  sinners  from  Thy  inheritance;  to 
break  the  pride  of  sinners  and  all  their  strength 
as  potters'  vessels  with  a  rod  of  iron ;  to  destroy 
the  lawless  nations  with  the  word  of  his  mouth; 
to  gather  a  holy  nation  and  lead  them  in  right- 
eousness. ...  In  his  days  there  shall  be  no 
unrighteousness  in  their  midst ;  for  they  are  all 
holy  and  their  king  the  anointed  of  the  Lord. 
He  shall  not  trust  on  horses  and  riders  and  bow- 
men, nor  heap  up  gold  and  silver  for  war,  nor 
put  his  confidence  in  a  multitude  for  the  day  of 
war.  'The  Lord  is  king,'  that  is  his  hope. 
.  .  .  God  hasten  His  mercy  on  Israel  to  de- 
liver them  from  the  uncleanness  of  profane  foes. 
The  Lord  is  our  king  for  ever  and  ever."  Sub- 
sequently this  expectation  was  never  far  from  the 
Jews,  and  so  wrought  upon  them  that  it  had  be- 
come matter  of  common  knowledge  to  the  pagan 
world  of  imperial  times.  Suetonius,  the  Roman 
historian,  is  quite  distinct  on  this  point:  "A 
firm  persuasion  had  long  prevailed  throughout  all 
the  East  that  it  was  fated  for  the  empire  of  the 
world,  at  that  time,  to  devolve  on  some  one  who 
should  go  forth  from  Judea.  This  prediction  re- 
ferred to  a  Roman  emperor,  as  the  event  showed  ; 
but  the  Jews,  applying  it  to  themselves,  broke 
into  rebellion,  and  having  defeated  and  slain 
their  governor,  routed  the  lieutenant  of  Syria,  a 
man  of  consular  rank,  who  was  advancing  to  his 


THE   ADVENT    OF   THE   SAVIOUR  1 33 

assistance,  and  took  an  eagle,  the  standard  c)f  one 
of  his  legions."  Law  or  no  law,  the  people  were 
longing  for  a  personal  leader  who  should  show 
them  the  way  of  righteousness,  render  them 
wholly  pleasing  to  Jehovah,  and  so  set  them  upon 
a  pinnacle  as  vicegerents  of  the  earth,  the  uni- 
versally accredited  and  authoritative  representa- 
tives of  the  one  true  God. 

.  The  prevalence  of  this  unrest  and  its  attendant 
expectation  at  length  found  illustration,  familiar 
to  all,  in  the  reception  and  teaching  of  John 
Baptist.  The  overlordship  of  the  Romans,  with 
its  continual  menace  to  Jewish  customs  and  oc- 
casional interference  ;  the  growing  misery  of  the 
population  under  taxation,  especially  during  the 
reign  of  Herod  the  Great;  the  wars  on  the  south- 
eastern borders  of  the  Roman  Empire ;  above  all, 
Herod's  death,  and  the  anticipated  transition  to 
a  milder  regime,  had  generated  many  fears  that 
now  gave  place  to  many  hopes  which,  like  all  re- 
actions, ripened  to  extreme  expression.  Men 
were  willing  to  welcome  any  one  who  promised 
even  change,  much  more  a  prophet  who  openly 
preached  deliverance.  To  this  our  Lord's  own 
words  testify  :  "Take  heed  that  no  man  lead 
you  astray.  For  many  shall  come  in  my  name, 
saying,  I  am  the  Christ ;  and  shall  lead  many 
astray.  And  ye  shall  hear  of  wars  and  rumors 
of  wars.  .  .  .  Then  if  any  man  shall  say  unto 
you,  Lo,  here  is  the  Christ,  or,  here;  believe 
it  not.  For  there  shall  arise  false  Christs,  and 
false  prophets,  and  shall  show  great  signs  and 
wonders  ;  so  as  to  lead  astray,  if  possible,  even 
the  elect.  .  .  .  Wheresoever  the  carcase  is, 
there  will  the  eagles  be  gathered  together." 
During  this  inflammable  period,  John  Baptist,  a 
unique  figure,  suddenly  appeared  in  the  wilder- 
ness  of  Judea.     We  are  not  now  concerned  so 


134  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

much  with  the  causes  that  may  have  cooperated 
in  his  favor  as  with  the  new  and  unprecedented 
nature  of  his  message.  The  Messianic  expecta- 
tion, almost  immemorial  with  the  Jews,  had  been 
associated  with  an  earthly  king  who,  though  he 
might  suffer,  would  at  the  last  vanquish,  to  the 
destruction  of  heathen  supremacy  and  the  libera- 
tion of  the  chosen  people,  who  would  thencefor- 
ward be  free  to  elaborate  and  enforce  the  law  of 
Jehovah.  If  not  for  every  Jew,  at  least  for  nearly 
all  Jews  of  influence,  these  semi-materialistic 
ideals  reigned  supreme.  John  Baptist  first  per- 
ceived their  illusory  character ;  he  was  pioneer 
too  among  those  who  had  the  courage  to  lay  their 
convictions  bare,  to  promulgate  them  as  a  novel 
and  better  gospel.  He  desired  to  shatter  the 
time-honored  superstition  that  the  chosen  nation 
must  await  with  folded  hands  till  the  true  deliv- 
erer declare  himself  and  prove  his  right  by 
might.  He  wished  to  substitute  for  the  more 
ancient  faith  a  moral  conception — each  man  must 
now  take  it  upon  himself  to  be  a  co-worker  with 
God,  and  in  confidence,  if  with  fear  and  trem- 
bling, proceed  to  work  out  his  own  salvation 
along  with  that  of  his  people.  In  short,  he 
lighted  upon  the  startling  discovery  that  the 
Messianic  hope,  though  a  promise  to  a  nation, 
could  be  brought  to  fulfilment  only  by  the  energy 
of  individuals.  Moreover,  he  insisted  that  this 
power  must  find  its  central  source,  not  so  much 
in  deeds  of  derring-do,  as  in  a  converted  person- 
ality, one  ready,  just  because  of  its  changed  dis- 
position, to  energize  invariably  and  on  all  occa- 
sions in  the  direction  of  righteousness.  Truly, 
among  men  born  of  women,  there  is  not  a  greater 
than  John  Baptist,  because  he  revealed  a  fresh 
fountain  of  hope,  and  a  legitimate  reason  for  ex- 
pectation, by  substituting  a   living  future   for   a 


THE   ADVENT    OF   THE    SAVIOUR  1 35 

dead  past.  It  was  no  longer  by  what  they  had 
done,  but  by  what  they  were  to  fit  themselves  to 
do  in  newness  of  spirit  that  the  Jews  could  dis- 
cover their  justification.  John  adjured  them  to 
set  aside  their  present  habit  of  life  under  the 
Law,  not  because  this  was  necessarily  bad,  but 
because  it  tempted  many  to  believe  that  counsels 
of  perfection  already  held  sway,  and  so  prevented 
them  from  seeing  that  the  whole  soul  stood  in 
need  of  sweeping  and  garnishing.  Hence  his 
message  came  to  be  marked  by  combination  of 
the  most  paradoxical  qualities.  Unprecedented, 
it  was  identical  in  a  measure  with  that  of  the 
great  prophets ;  harsh,  it  was  nevertheless  mar- 
vellously attractive ;  spiritual,  it  yet  presented 
materialistic  accompaniments  such  as  Jesus  after- 
ward felt  Himself  bound  to  condemn. 

Like  the  Rabbis,  John  spoke  with  authority; 
like  the  Sadducees,  he  came  of  a  priestly  race ; 
like  the  Essenes,  he  mortified  the  flesh ;  like  the 
Zealots,  he  believed  in  deeds  rather  than  in 
words.  So,  when  he  attracted  multitudes  who, 
knowing  not  why,  yearned  for  a  deliverer,  he 
seemed  to  possess  affinities  for  all  the  chief  sects 
of  the  day  who,  with  greater  or  less  clearness, 
understood  what  they  most  dearly  desired.  But 
simply  on  account  of  this  commingling  of  ele- 
ments, the  result  was  a  new  thing.  Repentance 
— an  inward  change — formed  the  burden  of  his 
gospel,  and  he  flared  it  forth  in  no  uncertain 
terms:  ''Bring  forth  fruit  worthy  of  repent- 
ance:  and  think  not  to  say  within  yourselves, 
We  have  Abraham  to  our  father :  for  I  say  unto 
you,  that  God  is  able  of  these  stones  to  raise  up 
children  unto  Abraham."  The  children  of 
Abraham  had  not  died  out  of  the  land,  nor  was 
their  extirpation  likely.  For  by  baptism,  "a 
symbol  which  stood  for  the  expulsion  of  sin  by 


136  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

repentance,"  a  bond  might  be  formed  between 
all  who  were  ready  for  Jehovah's  sudden  appear- 
ance in  His  temple  after  that  the  messenger  had 
prepared  a  way  before  Him.  John's  mission  was 
to  preach  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord,  and 
to  found  a  community  so  cleansed  in  heart  as  to 
!  be  ready  to  seize  the  changed  conditions  destined 
to  arise  immediately.  Yet  to  this  inner  alteration 
he  considered  external  rite  indispensable.  Jew- 
like he  expected  that  the  ordinance  of  baptism 
would,  in  its  own  right,  so  to  say,  be  productive 
of  potent  effect.  And  naturally  his  disciples, 
less  free  from  legal  associations  than  their  master, 
superadded  other  practices.  So  **  the  least  in 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  greater  than  he." 
John  knew  himself  for  a  forerunner  only,  and  his 
way  had  the  imperfections  incident  to  prepara- 
tion. Nevertheless,  he  was  the  forerunner,  and 
he  stands  sanctified  for  every  Christian,  because 
from  his  baptismal  consecration,  whether  a  work 
of  supererogation  or  no,  Christ's  missionary 
career  dates.  John  was  not  worthy  to  untie  Jesus 
shoe's  latchet,  yet  by  this  very  sense  of  unworthi- 
ness,  he  stands  transfigured  ineffably  forever. 

''John  the  Baptist  is  come  eating  no  bread  nor 
drinking  wine;  and  ye  say.  He  hath  a  devil. 
The  Son  of  man  is  come  eating  and  drinking; 
and  ye  say,  Behold,  a  gluttonous  man,  and  a 
winebibber,  a  friend  of  publicans  and  sinners  ! 
And  wisdom  is  justified  of  all  her  children." 
Little  as  the  official  representatives  of  Judaism 
appreciated  John  Baptist,  their  failure  to  fathom 
Jesus  was  still  more  complete.  For  if  John's 
work  were  spiritual  and  contemplated  an  internal 
reformation  that  spelled  foolishness  to  formalists, 
this  repentance,  with  its  washings  and  fastings, 
was  but  the  foreshadowing  of  Jesus'  infinitely 
deeper  spirituality.     With  His  Advent  John  dis- 


THE    ADVENT   OF   THE    SAVIOUR  I37 

appeared,  not  simply  murdered  by  the  Tetrarch, 
but  at  once  transcended  and  justified  by  the 
Christ.  The  incomparable  pathos  of  the  picture 
— the  unique  central  figure,  the  turbulent  sur- 
roundings, human  effeteness  and  ineffectuality, 
the  gift  of  eternal  life  and  its  nigh  unanimous  re- 
jection— ever  presents  fresh  features  to  every  ob- 
server in  each  succeeding  age.  Here  we  can  but 
ask,  and  attempt  brief  reply  to,  the  question, 
What  did  it  all  mean? 

Ancient  religion,  as  we  shall  see  more  fully, 
had  exhausted  every  device  to  convince  man  of 
the  worth  of  life  and  the  nearness  of  God. 
Pantheism  had  located  deity  in  everything  only 
to  discover  that  everywhere  distinct  manifestation 
failed  ;  Nature  worship,  with  its  lords  many  and 
gods  many,  had  worked  towards  the  conception 
of  one  deity  through  long  fits  of  slow  dissatisfac- 
tion, only  to  find  the  shrine  inhabited  by  a  dread 
fate  having  neither  heart  nor  discrimination  ;  the 
cultus  of  Jehovah,  the  God  of  the  whole  earth 
and  the  righteous  Judge  of  man,  had  become  ob- 
scured amid  the  multiplying  demands  of  the  Law 
till  at  length  some  suspected  Him  of  being  little 
better  than  a  taskmaster  who  of  set  malice  pre- 
scribed impossible  labors.  The  times  were  ripe 
for  a  more  specific  revelation  of  the  Divine  Na- 
ture, for,  as  never  before,  enfeebled,  disen- 
chanted, but  still  eager  for  the  one  thing  needful, 
the  world  halted  as  if  in  expectancy.  Neverthe- 
less, wholly  rapt  up  in  their  variegated  material- 
ism— social,  non-moral,  yet  at  the  same  time  re- 
ligious— the  vast  majority  failed  at  first  to  appre- 
ciate the  Advent  of  the  Saviour.  Worse  had  still 
to  befall  both  Jew  and  Gentile  before  this  con- 
summation. "  He  was  despised,  and  rejected  of 
men ;  a  man  of  sorrows,  and  acquainted  with 
grief:   and   as   one   from  whom  men  hide  their 


138  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

face  he  was  despised,  and  we  esteemed  him  not." 
The  immortal  pathos  of  it  all  lay  in  Jesus'  self- 
knowledge  of  what  He  was  and  of  what  it  was 
His  to  accomplish.  He  yearned  toward  man- 
kind, lifted  humanity  inconceivably — almost  to 
the  plane  of  deity ;  and  yet  His  own — those  to 
whom  He  came  and  for  whom  this  elevation  was 
His  free  gift — knew  Him  not.  Accordingly,  the 
meaning  we  seek  must  be  gathered,  not  from 
man's  judgment,  not  even  from  that  of  the  dis- 
ciples, but  from  Jesus'  own  thought  and  from  His 
own  testimony  to  the  work  that  was  given  Him 
to  do. 

The  record  of  the  gospels  is  here  perfectly 
conclusive.  Jesus'  thought  of  Himself  displays 
a  profound  conviction  of  intimate  communion 
with  God,  a  surpassing  insight  into  the  real  na- 
ture of  man,  an  unexampled  knowledge  of  the 
ultimate  relation  between  Deity  and  Humanity. 
More  striking,  if  possible,  than  all  these  was  His 
decisive  judgment  that  with  Him  past  and  pres- 
ent end,  and  that  from  His  Person  the  future 
takes  its  departure.  His  was  a  special  revelation, 
destined  to  turn  the  universe  from  its  idols,  con- 
secrated though  they  might  be  by  long  ages  of 
usage,  to  a  fresh  and  incomparably  deeper  appre- 
ciation of  the  entire  situation  involved  in  tlie 
very  fact  of  human  life.  He  recognized  this, 
and  was  perfectly  aware  that  He  and  He  alone 
could  be  the  instrument  of  the  gigantic  trans- 
formation. Further,  He  proved  Himself  to  the 
full — proved  Himself  mayhap  more  than  we  can 
even  now  understand,  in  that  He  did  **  destroy 
this  temple  that  is  made  with  hands,  and  in  three 
days"  built  *' another  made  without  hands." 
These  three  days,  triumphant  in  shame,  formed 
fit  epitome  of  the  three  years  in  which,  face  to 
face  with  universal  scorn  or  hatred,  He  turned 


THE   ADVENT    OF   THE    SAVIOUR  1 39 

opposition,  obloquy,  and  death  itself  into  an  as- 
cending series  of  opportunities  for  revelation  of 
the  Divine  Nature  in  human  form.  All  ancient 
conceptions  of  right  and  wrong  betook  themselves 
to  flight,  all  old  standards  of  judgment  went  by 
the  board.  Man's  passions  forsook  their  office  as 
the  designated  ministers  of  damnation  ;  sacrifices 
and  oblations  sank  to  the  level  of  their  attenuated 
reality  ;  the  voice  of  the  great  prophets  ceased  to 
be  a  mere  minatory  command ;  the  popular  Mes- 
siah, as  a  more  successful  and  infinitely  less  bar- 
barous David,  took  his  place  among  other  discred- 
ited and  often  discreditable  superstitions.  The 
world-king  of  the  Jews  was  served  with  a  writ  of 
perpetual  banishment ;  the  Temple  service  and  the 
Law  shrank  to  their  proper  proportions  as  means  in 
the  mysterious  providence  of  God.  "  My  kingdom 
is  not  of  this  world."  Yea,  verily.  In  place  of  ail 
these,  what  was  there  now?  Jesus  Himself,  His 
revelation.  His  person.  His  revelation  showed 
forth  the  true  kingdom  of  God  ;  His  person  time- 
lessly  solved  the  timeless  problem  of  salvation. 
In  His  revelation  He  proved  His  divine  sonship; 
in  His  person  He  could  not  but  be  the  Saviour, 
as  indeed  subsequent  history  attests  the  world 
over. 

Christ's  revelation  finally  sets  forth  that  God, 
to  be  God,  must  realize  His  fatherliood ;  that 
man,  to  be  man,  must  recognize  his  veritable 
sonship.  His  intense  appreciation  of  the  spirit- 
uality of  the  Divine  Nature  throws  a  beam  of 
heavenly  light  into  the  depths  of  the  human  heart 
and  reveals  there,  so  long  and  so  sadly  concealed, 
a  similar  spirituality.  Touched  in  all  points  like 
as  we  are.  He  knew  our  weaknesses,  our  limita- 
tions as  compared  with  God's  fulness,  yet,  for 
this  very  reason,  He  also  experienced  our  possi- 
bilities, and  had  appeared  in  order  to  reveal  the 


I40  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

means  to  their  highest  realization.  A  man,  He 
confessed  His  sonship,  and  so  became  to  all  men 
who  choose  to  hear  the  Way,  the  Truth,  and  the 
Life.  Yet,  once  more,  this  revelation  could  not 
have  been  accomplished  apart  from  His  divine 
nature  in  what  it  was,  nay,  in  what  it  still  is  and 
ever  must  be,  as  an  unfailing  source  of  continu- 
ally renewed  moral  and  spiritual  aspiration.  With 
literal  truth  St.  Paul  said,  '*To  me  to  live  is 
Christ."  By  virtue  of  His  person,  Christ  is  thus 
the  Saviour.  Through  Him,  as  through  none 
other,  the  gateway  to  consecrated  manhood  has 
been  opened  wide  as  wide  can  be.  Such  are  His 
marvellous  winsomeness.  His  subtle  grace,  His 
perfect  humanity  of  life,  that  in  His  own  age, 
aye,  and  in  every  succeeding  day,  the  principal 
elements  in  the  spirit  of  the  time  have  bowed 
themselves  before  His  persuasive  authority. 
Wherever  His  name  has  penetrated  it  has  be- 
come, often  with  miraculous  celerity,  the  domi- 
nant influence,  none  the  less  dominant  that  many 
have  remained  unconscious  of  the  fact.  Turning 
men  everywhere  from  lust  and  sin  and  vain  self- 
reliance.  He  has  redeemed  them  by  gently  lead- 
ing them  to  walk  in  the  purer,  saner,  godlier 
ways.  And  only  in  so  far  as  He  has  effected  this 
in  them  have  those  who  call  upon  His  name 
permitted  Him  to  rule  them  as  their  Master. 
Nay,  He  is  ready  and  able  to  redeem  the  world 
now — to  disperse  that  cursed  brood  of  evils  which 
so  press  upon  modern  civilization — if  all  who 
confess  Him  will  but  allow  Him  to  transform 
their  lives  in  very  truth  to  the  image  of  His. 
"The  Spirit  itself  beareth  witness  with  our  spirit, 
that  we  are  the  children  of  God  :  and  if  chil- 
dren, then  heirs  and  joint  heirs  with  Christ;  if 
so  be  that  we  suffer  with  him,  that  we  may  also 
be  glorified  together."     The  groundwork  of  hu- 


THE   ADVENT    OF   THE   SAVIOUR  141 

man  nature,  that  below  which  we  cannot  pene- 
trate when  we  analyze  its  higher  side,  is  the  fact 
that  for  sin  we  must  even  now  ^^  suffer  with 
Christ  whether  we  believe  in  Him  or  not."  If 
men  would  but  permit  His  spirit  so  to  operate  in 
their  lives  as  to  change  them  entirely  to  His 
likeness,  the  face  of  our  vaunted  civilization 
would  become  civilized  indeed  ;  it  can  be  brought 
to  some  foretaste  of  perfection ;  it  can  be  purged 
of  its  doubts  and  damnable  evils  only  by  that 
faith  in  the  ideals  revealed  by  Him,  which  leads 
a  man  to  the  conviction  that  every  act  not  in- 
spired by  them  is  born  of  sin.  It  is  this  impres- 
sion of  inexhaustible  power  for  the  right,  issuing 
from  Christ's  Person  and  flowing  on  uninter- 
rupted in  the  characters  of  those  saints  who  can 
fitly  name  themselves  by  His  sacred  name,  that 
constitutes  Him  the  Saviour,  not  in  the  narrow 
Judea  of  years  long  gone  by,  but  in  the  whole  of 
God's  universe  to  eternity.  And  by  this  kind  of 
faith  lives  that  part  of  humanity  which  alone  has, 
or  is  rising  to,  worthiness. 

The  Advent  of  the  Saviour  being  the  mightiest 
of  historical  occurrences  needed  a  spirit  of  deep- 
est religious  perception  to  appreciate  it  duly  and 
to  sum  it  up.  And,  as  always,  the  master  of 
those  who  know  was  not  wanting.  For  when 
every  argument  has  been  adduced,  when  every 
elucidation  has  slowly  arrived  at  clearest  state- 
ment, nothing  really  remains  to  be  added  to,  as 
nothing  can  be  subtracted  from,  St.  Paul's  ring- 
ing declaration:  "I  am  not  ashamed  of  the 
gospel  of  Christ :  for  it  is  the  power  of  God  unto 
salvation  to  every  one  that  believeth  ;  to  the  Jew 
first,  and  also  to  the  Greek.  For  therein  is  re- 
vealed a  righteousness  of  God  by  faith  unto 
faith  :  as  it  is  written,  But  the  righteous  shall  live 
by  faith.     For  the  wrath  of  God  is  revealed  from 


142  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

heaven  against  all  ungodliness  and  unrighteous- 
ness of  men,  who  hold  down  the  truth  in  un- 
righteousness ;  because  that  which  may  be  k7iown 
of  God  is  manifest  i7i  them  ;  for  God  manifested 
it  unto  them.  For  the  invisible  things  of  him 
since  the  creation  of  the  world  are  clearly  seen, 
being  perceived  through  the  things  that  are  made, 
even  his  everlasting  power  and  divinity.  ^^ 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   PREPARATION   OF   THE   WORLD 

"These    things    were    not    done    in  a  corner." — Acts 
xxvi.  26. 

**No\v  it  came  to  pass  in  those  days,  there 
went  out  a  decree  from  Caesar  Augustus,  that  all 
the  world  should  be  enrolled.  .  .  .  And  all  went 
to  enrol  themselves.  .  .  .  And  Joseph  also  went 
up  ...  to  enrol  himself  with  Mary.  .  .  .  And 
it  came  to  pass,  while  they  were  there,  the  days 
were  fulfilled  that  she  should  be  delivered.  And 
she  brought  forth  her  firstborn  son."  Whether 
St.  Luke's  memory  served  him  rightly  or  no  with 
regard  to  the  census  of  Quirinius  is  matter  of 
small  importance  for  our  present  discussion. 
The  essential  point  to  be  noted  is  the  absorption 
of  the  Holy  Land  in  the  "  world  wide  "  Roman 
Empire.  Taken  in  connection  with  universal 
history,  it  may  be  said  that  the  gradual  extension 
of  Roman  dominion,  and  the  effects  produced  by 
it,  constituted  the  preparation  of  the  world  for 
the  religion  of  the  Christ.  Like  other  epoch- 
making  organizations,  the  Latin  overlordship  was 
the  magnificent  consequence  of  long  centuries  of 
travail  marked  by  ruthless  bloodshed  and  the 
perpetration  of  numerous  injustices.  But  as  this 
slow  sequence  moved  toward  its  wonderful  close, 
events  followed  one  another  with  growing 
rapidity,  and  in  the  space  of  a  single  century  the 
civilized  world  changed  its  aspect,  the  alteration 
becoming  increasingly  conspicuous  during  the 

143 


144  PREPARATION   FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

last  fifty  years.  The  two  immortal  names  round 
whom  this  period  gravitates  are  Caius  Julius 
Caesar  (100-44  B.C.)  and  Augustus  Caesar  (63 
B.C.-14  A.D.).  The  one,  a  military  genius  of 
the  first  rank,  made  the  Empire  what  it  was  after- 
ward to  remain  as  a  territorial  unit ;  the  other, 
an  administrative  genius  seldom  equalled,  never 
surpassed,  gave  its  final  form  to  the  body  politic. 
When  we  compare  the  Roman  Empire  as  Julius 
Caesar  practically  left  it  with  the  three  "heavy 
weight"  powers  of  the  present  day,  it  supports 
the  contrast  but  ill.  Britain,  Russia,  and  the 
United  States  present  surpassing  external  features. 
The  Queen -Empress  exercises  sway  over  a  do- 
minion at  least  thrice  as  populous  as  that  ruled 
by  Hadrian,  under  whom  the  Empire  attained  its 
widest  extension.  The  provinces  of  Rome  could 
be  laid  upon  those  of  the  Czar,  and  yet  the 
Colossus  of  the  North  would  stretch  beyond  on 
every  side.  The  United  States  contain  a  larger 
territory  constituting  a  far  more  homogeneous 
geographical  and,  after  a  fashion,  racial  unity. 
Nevertheless,  we  have  to  remember  that  all  such 
comparisons  serve  only  to  mislead.  The  great 
countries  of  the  present  are  marked  by  traits 
peculiar  to  themselves;  each  possesses  something 
distinctively  its  own  which  it  contributes  to  the 
common  stock  of  civilization.  Further,  of  their 
many  millions  a  considerable  proportion  can 
hardly  be  accounted  as  of  prime  importance  for 
the  advance  of  human  well-being ;  at  least  so  it 
would  seem  to  contemporary  judgment — a  judg- 
ment which,  simply  because  it  is  contemporary, 
may  be  partial  or  lack  finality.  With  Rome  the 
case  was  entirely  different.  To  all  intents  and 
purposes  her  domain  coincided  with  the  civilized 
world  of  the  era ;  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  future 
progress  of  the  human  race — take  any  line  you 


THE   PREPARATION   OF   THE  WORLD  1 45 

choose,  political,  social,  religious,  scientific — lay 
in  the  hands  of  the  peoples  whom  she  ruled. 
All  that  was  of  worth  and  significance,  like  all 
that  was  destined  to  be  of  moment  at  a  later  date, 
had  been  gathered  within  her  borders.  As  can 
probably  never  happen  again,  a  single  dominion 
could  legitimately  be  identified  with  the  world. 
This  being  the  historical  situation,  what  were 
its  consequences? 

Augustus  was  not  merely  the  first  emperor,  but 
the  first  Roman  to  realize  the  significance  of  an 
imperial  policy.  Hitherto  the  provinces  had  been 
subjected  to  much  harsh  and  impolitic  treatment. 
In  particular,  they  had  been  freely  bled  by  taxa- 
tion, and  the  proconsuls  sent  to  administer  law  and 
government  had  too  often  viewed  their  position, 
not  as  a  great  trust,  but  as  a  grand  opportunity 
for  self-enrichment  at  the  expense  of  the  un- 
fortunate populace.  In  these  circumstances  dis- 
content inevitably  waxed,  while  the  sense  of  unity 
with  Rome  failed  to  grow  strong.  Their  very 
sufferings  and  wrongs  served  to  weld  the  subject 
nationalities  into  distinct  fragments  within  the 
Empire,  and  to  preserve  that  feeling  of  their  own 
peculiar  oneness  which  had  sprung  up  round  their 
special  beliefs,  customs,  and  political  systems  in 
the  days  of  their  independence.  Augustus 
quickly  perceived  this  and  made  haste  to  intro- 
duce reforms.  He  inaugurated  a  more  liberal, 
more  rational,  infinitely  more  statesmanlike 
policy,  and  although  numerous  abuses  were  still 
rife,  immense  improvements,  tending  towards 
alleviation  of  fiscal  burdens,  unquestionably  took 
place.  In  a  word,  the  provincial  governors 
found,  as  they  never  could  under  the  Republic, 
that  the  irresistible  will  of  the  Caesar  formed 
both  a  fixed  limit  to  their  caprices  and  a  tribunal 
before  which  they  would  be  compelled  to  give  an 


146  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

account  of  their  stewardship.  Many  of  the 
events  that  occurred  under  Pilate's  rule  in  Judea 
during  the  life  of  our  Lord,  for  example,  may  be 
traced  directly  to  this  cause.  Very  possibly  it 
had  not  a  little  influence  over  the  decision  that 
condemned  Christ  to  a  felon's  shameful  and  bar- 
barously cruel  death. 

But  supplementary  to  all  this,  another  line  of 
policy,  initiated  in  the  wisdom  of  Augustus, 
gradually  came  to  make  itself  felt.  The  success 
of  the  Roman  provincial  administration  has  be- 
come proverbial  mainly  for  the  manner  in  which 
it  handled  the  ticklish  problem  of  subject  nation- 
alities. Very  few  attempts  to  stamp  out  localized 
customs  by  force,  especially  those  connected  with 
the  religious  usages  of  the  various  peoples,  stand 
recorded.  The  effort  was  to  introduce  Roman 
rule  with  as  little  disturbance  as  possible.  This 
policy,  however,  served  as  a  cloak  for  another 
aim  sedulously  pursued.  By  extending  the 
privileges  of  Roman  citizenship  the  emperors 
hoped  to  subdue  manifestations  of  distinctively 
national  feeling.  They  consciously  tried  to  re- 
place the  ancient  national  pride  by  incorporating 
the  conquered  peoples  into  the  grander  unity  of 
the  new  empire.  And  in  this,  Judea  and  Egypt 
aside,  they  met  with  wonderful  success.  The 
very  magnitude  of  the  Empire,  the  grand  sweep 
of  its  territory,  the  splendor  of  Rome's  past 
achievements,  acted  as  a  powerful  leverage.  In 
an  author  so  distinctively  Greek  as  Plutarch — the 
contemporary  of  nearly  all  the  New  Testament 
writers — we  find  numerous  and  significant  traces 
of  the  profound  impression  produced  by  the  ac- 
complished facts  of  the  day.  The  ''Roman 
peace  "  too,  as  it  was  called,  operated  in  the  same 
direction.  Deliverance  from  continual  war,  ex- 
tinction   of  the   very    opportunities   for   mutual 


THE   PREPARATION    OF    THE    WORLD  1 47 

quarrelling,  emancipation  from  the  strife  between 
internal  factions,  and  the  consequent  feeling  of 
immunity  from  invasion  and  from  the  terrors  of 
personal  spite  often  incident  to  civil  struggles 
with  their  cruel  proscriptions,  induced  thousands 
to  acquiesce  in  the  domination  of  a  single  all- 
powerful  will  which,  in  its  own  interest,  put  an 
end  to  tumults.  Thus,  despite  the  conjunction 
of  the  most  varied,  even  antagonistic,  elements, 
the  world  was  rapidly  becoming  one  in  a  way 
that  it  had  never  been  before. 

What  is  termed  the  spread  of  "  universalism," 
then,  constituted  the  first  main  office  performed 
by  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  Preparation  for 
Christianity.  Without  this  vast,  and  so  far 
homogeneous,  unity  prepared  for  its  reception 
under  the  striking  providence  of  God,  Chris- 
tianity might  very  well  never  have  been  heard  of 
beyond  the  narrow  limits  of  the  land  of  its  birth, 
where  sea,  desert,  and  mountain  keep  such  good 
guard.  The  uniformity  of  the  Empire,  or  rather 
the  main  qualities  characteristic  of  it,  thus  re- 
quire to  be  clearly  understood.  These  qualities 
are  divisible  fairly  enough  into  two  groups — one 
external,  or  of  the  body  politic  ;  the  other  inter- 
nal, or  pertaining  to  the  general  spirit  of  the  civ- 
ilization of  the  period.  The  fuller  discussion  of 
the  spirit  that  permeated  the  entire  organization 
we  reserve  till  later. 

First,  then,  and  in  modern  phraseology,  the 
Roman  Empire  was  at  once  a  continental  and  a 
maritime  power — continental  as  respected  all 
lands  over  which  assured  sway  reigned,  maritime 
in  relation  to  the  Mediterranean  Sea.  An  ef- 
fective instrument  for  levelling  those  barriers  of 
custom  and  sentiment — far  more  subtle  and  diffi- 
cult to  alter  than  mere  territorial  arrangements — 
which  nations  have  from  time  immemorial  set  up 


148  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

between  one  another,  is  to  provide  plentiful 
means  of  intercourse.  This  can  be  successfully 
accomplished  only  when  universal  peace  reigns, 
and  prospect  of  its  immediate  disturbance  lies 
remote.  As  we  have  seen,  Rome  had  secured 
these  conditions  throughout  the  greater  part  of 
her  dominions.  It  may  strike  us  as  strange, 
nevertheless  it  is  true,  that,  from  the  close  of  the 
Roman  imperial  period  till  the  middle  of  the 
second  quarter  of  the  present  century  travel, 
with  its  accompaniment  of  foreign  intercourse, 
were  comparatively  difficult.  In  other  words, 
during  the  intervening  ages  man  never  enjoyed 
facilities  comparable  with  those  afforded  then 
and  now.  To  find  something  like  the  contem- 
porary movement  of  men  we  must  go  back  these 
nineteen  hundred  years.  Unlike  as  they  may  be 
in  other  respects,  the  two  periods  present  some 
similarity  in  all  that  pertains  to  the  essential  con- 
ditions of  travel.  Security  and  excellent  means 
of  communication  mark  both.  The  Roman 
peace  gave  the  one,  the  Roman  roads  supplied 
the  other.  Incredible  as  it  may  seem,  this  does 
not  exhaust  the  tale.  Till  the  invention  of  the 
locomotive  and  the  marine  engine,  travel  was 
never  so  rapid  over  long  distances  as  it  had  been 
under  the  Caesars.  We  hear  of  a  high  Roman 
official  who  was  able  to  pass  from  Southern 
Spain  to  Rome  in  a  week;  and,  speaking  more 
generally,  we  know  that  the  feats  accomplished 
by  what  might  be  termed  the  imperial  post  were 
little  short  of  marvellous.  The  great  arteries  of 
communication  were  constructed  and  guarded  by 
an  irresistible  power.  All  could  pass  along  them 
in  safety,  and,  even  taking  our  own  time  as  a 
standard,  with  comparative  speed.  Intercourse 
was  no  longer  barred,  had  actually  become 
simple,    comparitively   speaking;    and    we   may 


THE    PREPARATION    OF   THE    WORLD  1 49 

rest  assured  that,  under  such  conditions,  travel 
was  by  no  means  so  unusual  as  some  might 
naturally  suppose.  Further,  as  respects  man's 
other  chief  highway,  the  sea,  the  Roman  em- 
perors, if  they  could  not  control  the  elements, 
could  at  least  stamp  out  some  attendant  dangers. 
For  years  the  waterway  between  East  and  West 
had  been  infested  by  pirates,  who  fell  upon  the 
rich  cargoes  of  Syria,  Arabia,  and  Egypt,  ren- 
dering trade  at  once  insecure,  dangerous,  and 
unprofitable.  But  the  single  will  of  the  emperor, 
being  backed  by  the  requisite  force,  drove  them 
from  their  chosen  hunting  ground,  and,  as  if  by 
magic,  the  Mediterranean  became  as  safe  as  the 
Atlantic  is  to-day.  So  East  and  West  were  free 
to  commingle  with  one  another,  to  gain  that  in- 
timate knowledge  which  bartering  is  calculated 
to  produce.  What  the  imperial  government  thus 
accomplished  both  as  a  continental  and  a  mari- 
time power  gave  rise  to  an  immense  extension  of 
travel  and  trade,  which  could  now  be  undertaken 
in  reasonable  prospect  of  security  and  immunity 
from  illegitimate  exaction.  The  world  was  fairly 
on  the  way  to  become  one  in  an  entirely  new 
sense.  A  path  had  been  cut  for  cosmopolitanism, 
and  the  need  for  sending  Roman  soldiers  and  ad- 
ministrators to  all  parts  of  the  imperial  domain 
familiarized  some  with  these  new  means  of  in- 
tercourse, convinced  many  of  their  availability, 
security,  and  speed.  Provincials  grew  into  tlie 
habit  of  making  pilgrimages  to  the  Empire-city  ; 
there  they  had  opportunities  for  meeting  with  all 
sorts  and  conditions  of  men  ;  Romans  sent  their 
sons  to  Greece  for  "  finishing  "  education,  and 
the  ''grand  tour" — Greece,  Egypt,  Italy,  and 
sometimes  Gaul — was  not  at  all  uncommon.  Cir- 
cumstances conspired  to  break  down  that  aloof- 
ness which  so  ordinarily  and  effectually  separates 


150  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

one  nationality  from  another,  and  wide  breaches 
in  this  exchisiveness  had  ah-eady  been  made  by 
the  entrance  of  Roman  citizenship  with  its  invig- 
orating communication  of  definite  legal  privi- 
leges. So  far,  then,  what  may  be  termed  the 
body. 

When  we  turn  to  the  more  intimate  bonds  of 
the  civilization  of  the  day,  similar  phenomena  at 
once  reveal  themselves.  The  most  excellent 
means  of  communication,  the  most  widely  dis- 
tributed habit  of  travel  would  be  of  little  avail — 
as  indeed  contemporary  events  prove — were  men 
unable  to  enter  into  familiar  intercourse ;  and 
the  sole  medium  for  this  is  to  be  found  in  lan- 
guage. Here  too  the  Roman  Empire  was  well 
served.  Take  the  imperial  city  for  what  she 
actually  was,  the  centre  of  the  vast  dominion,  and 
it  may  be  said  that  to  the  east  of  her,  one  tongue, 
to  the  west  of  her  another,  was  universally  under- 
stood. As  their  civilization  still  shows,  Spain 
and  France,  Italy  and  Britain,  and,  in  a  lesser 
degree,  Germany  traded,  were  ruled,  and  inten- 
sified their  culture  through  the  medium  of  Latin. 
Asia  Minor,  Asia  Anterior,  Hellas,  Syria,  Phoe- 
nicia, Palestine,  Egypt  found  in  Greek  a  common 
speech.  Here  were  means  of  unification  more 
potent,  more  profound  than  many  policies  even 
of  all-powerful  rulers.  Nor  does  the  recital  end 
here.  Rome  herself  became  bilingual.  Her  cul- 
tivated men,  born  to  Latin  speech,  were  forced 
to  familiarize  themselves  with  Greek,  just  as  the 
Russian  of  similar  position  to-day  must  learn 
French  or  English,  if  he  is  not  to  be  cut  off 
from  contemporary  culture.  This  spread  of 
Greek  in  Rome  was  necessarily  followed  by  the 
extension  of  its  use  farther  west.  So  universal 
did  it  become,  at  least  in  the  metropolis,  that  we 
find  a  learned  man  like  Plutarch,  not  only  put  to 


THE    PREPARATION    OF   THE    '.VORLD  151 

no  inconvenience  outside  his  native  Greece  by 
his  ignorance  of  Latin,  but  even  feeling  himself 
so  much  at  home  in  Rome  herself  as  to  be  under 
no  compulsion  to  acquire  her  mother  tongue. 
The  Greeks  were  giving,  not  only  laws,  but  also 
language  to  the  conquerors. 

The  numerous  causes  and  widespread  circum- 
stances just  outlined  combined  to  produce  a 
single  result.  In  certain  broad  aspects  of  it,  if 
not  in  every  detail,  the  civilization  of  the  time 
tended  to  become  less  provincial  and  particu- 
larist,  more  international  and  more  marked  by  a 
common  underlying  or  pervading  sentiment. 
Graeco-Roman  culture  spread  everywhere.  The 
name  is  significant.  The  contact  of  Greek  ideas 
with  Roman  character  had  gradually  produced 
fresh  traits  neither  exclusively  Hellenic  nor  ex- 
clusively Roman,  but  characterized  by  qualities 
special  to  a  new  compound.  It  may  be  said 
that,  at  the  time  of  our  Lord's  birth,  this  amal- 
gamated civilization,  touched  here  and  there 
with  ideas  filtered  in  from  the  Orient,  prevailed 
all  over  the  provinces  with  a  Mediterranean  sea- 
board. More  slowly  in  some  lands  than  in 
others,  but  still  surely  everywhere,  unity  of 
spirit  was  making  its  presence  felt,  at  least  among 
those  who  had  claim  to  culture  or  who  actually 
wielded  influence.  A  broadening  of  life  was  in 
process,  for  ways  of  estimating  it  peculiar  to  re- 
stricted localities  or  to  specific  nationalities  were 
beginning  to  be  obliterated.  Similar  ideals, 
identical  standards  of  judgment  were  arising  to 
organize  the  world,  not  merely  into  a  political, 
but  into  a  social  unity.  *'God,"  as  Origen 
strikingly  put  it,  "was  preparing  the  nations  for 
His  doctrine,  and  providing  that  all  men  should 
obey  the  one  Roman  emperor;  lest,  if  there 
were  a  number  of  kings  and  nations  strange  to 


152  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

each  other,  it  might  be  more  difficult  for  the 
Apjstlesto  do  what  Jesus  commanded  them,  say- 
ing, *  Go,  teach  all  nations.'  It  is  well  known, 
however,  that  Jesus  was  born  under  the  reign  of 
Augustus,  who  had  bound  together  in  one  empire 
the  great  multitude  of  the  dispersed  inhabitants 
of  the  world."  The  comparatively  brief  period 
that  had  elapsed  between  the  founding  of  the 
Empire  and  the  birth  of  Christianity  might  rea- 
sonably seem  far  too  short  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  results  so  profoundly  influential  and  so 
widely  diffused.  But  we  have  to  call  to  mind 
that  unification  of  culture  originated  in  the  ex- 
traordinary scheme  of  Alexander  the  Great,  "  to 
Hellenize  the  world."  He  did  not  live  to  see 
the  fulfilment  of  his  desires,  but  the  impulse 
given  by  him  to  the  propagation  of  Greek  ideas 
never  lost  its  force,  and  as  the  years  rolled  on, 
Greece  became  more  and  more  ''  essentially  the 
paid  teacher  of  the  Roman  "  world  for  good  or 
for  evil.  The  task  of  the  early  empire  was  thus 
to  impart  unity  or  universality — with  consequent 
stability — to  a  composite  civilization  that  had 
been  in  course  of  formation  for  more  than  three 
centuries.  This  was  accomplished  in  the  gener- 
ation immediately  preceding  Christ,  accom- 
plished too  with  remarkable  ease  and  success,  the 
enormous  difficulties  duly  considered.  For  the 
concentration  of  power  in  the  hands  of  a  single 
authority  happened  to  be  precisely  the  remedy 
for  the  distractions,  strifes,  and  disturbances  that 
had  so  conspicuously  worried  an  entire  world 
during  the  last  days  of  the  Roman  republic.  And 
that  intuition  for  government,  so  characteristic  of 
the  Romans,  seemed  to  find  incarnation  in  the 
first  imperial  Caesar.  He  destroyed  nought,  but 
rather  bent  his  splendid  genius  toward  systemat- 
ically welding  the  huge  accumulations  of  many 


THE   PREPARATION    OF    THE   WORLD  153 

centuries  into  one  harmonious  organism.  And 
the  time  was  big  with  unification.  The  personal 
weight  of  one  recognized  head  was  sorely 
needed ;  the  channels  for  his  self-expression  had 
already  been  created  by  the  distinctive  spirit  of 
Roman  patriotism  ;  the  necessary,  social,  reli- 
gious, and  intellectual  capital  had  been  contrib- 
uted by  Greece,  and  in  some  part,  small  mean- 
time, by  the  oriental  mind;  the  vigorous  tribes 
of  Gaul  and  Germany  had  transfused  their  life- 
giving  blood  into  the  veins  of  outworn  society. 
The  imperial  ruler  had  but  to  arouse  the  amalga- 
mated peoples  to  consciousness  of  their  unity, 
and  to  some  appreciation  of  the  benefits  con- 
ferred by  the  metropolitan  city.  Thus  it  came 
about  that  the  universal  religion  was  born  into 
the  universal  kingdom.  Different  and  contrasted 
in  all  other  respects,  the  kingdom  of  God  and 
the  kingdom  of  this  world  were  one  in  this  single 
and  outstanding  characteristic. 

The  Roman  Empire  has  been  called  a  body 
without  life.  And  were  it  part  of  our  present  pur- 
pose to  trace  the  causes  that  led  to  its  eventual 
decline  and  destruction,  evidence  and  to  spare 
could  be  adduced  to  justify  this  harsh  judgment. 
Yet  to  prevent  misunderstanding,  it  must  be  in- 
sisted that  the  criticism  scarcely  applies  to  the 
period  now  under  review.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  a  diffused  feeling  of  hopefulness,  of  expecta- 
tion, in  some  of  its  manifestations  little  distin- 
guishable from  enthusiasm,  heralded  and  hymned 
the  achievements  of  Augustus,  The  world  was 
sick  of  war,  and  it  received  the  priceless  gift  of 
peace  ;  the  sudden  change  from  weak  and  decen- 
tralized policies  to  strong  central  government, 
sure  of  itself,  revived  the  nations  by  furnishing 
them  with  many  reasons  for  priding  themselves 
upon  the  empire  to  which  they  belonged ;  dead 


154  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

as  the  ancient  oracles  might  be,  the  rites  of  the 
Julian  family  became  an  imperial  gift,  and  their 
widespread  observance  stimulated  religious  belief 
in  many  directions  and  led  strayed  sheep  to  re- 
turn in  some  wise  to  the  fold.  Moreover,  these 
movements  as  a  whole  were  protected,  nurtured, 
and  even  impelled  by  the  emperor  who,  as  head 
of  the  state,  felt  their  present  import  and  sensed 
their  future  influence  as  no  other  could.  Taking 
all  the  phenomena  of  the  nascent  empire  into 
consideration,  one  may  fairly  say  that  the  new 
body  politic  possessed  a  living  spirit  in  so  far  as 
thousands  experienced  relief  and  were  touched 
by  the  faith  that,  after  a  fashion,  humanity  was 
beginning  life  over  again.  Here,  as  always,  liter- 
ature gathers  up  the  spirit  of  the  age.  And  if 
we  appeal  to  the  representative  poet  of  the  day, 
what  do  we  find?  "  It  was  Virgil's  aim  in  the 
j^iieid  to  show  that  this  edifice  of  Roman  Em- 
pire, of  which  the  enterprise  of  yEneas  was  the 
foundation,  on  which  the  old  kings  of  Alba  and 
of  Rome  and  the  successive  generations  of  great 
men  under  the  Republic  had  successively  labored, 
and  on  which  Augustus  placed  the  coping-stone, 
was  no  mere  work  of  human  hands,  but  had  been 
designed  and  built  up  by  divine  purpose  and 
guidance.  The  yE?ieid  expresses  the  religious  as 
it  does  the  national  sentiment  of  Rome.  The 
two  modes  of  sentiment  were  inseparable.  The 
belief  of  the  Romans  in  themselves  was  another 
form  of  their  absolute  faith  in  the  invisible  power 
which  protected  them.  .  .  .  The  personal  figure 
of  the  emperor  is  thus  encompassed  with  the  halo 
of  military  glory,  of  beneficent  action  on  the 
world,  of  a  divine  sanction,  and  of  an  ultimate 
heritage  of  divine  honors.  The  yS7ieid  consid- 
ered as  a  representative  work  of  genius  is  thus 
seen  to  be  the  expression  or  embodiment  of  an 


THE    PREPARATION    OF    THE    WORLD  1 55 

idea  of  powerful  meaning  for  the  age  in  which 
the  poem  was  written."  The  prevalent  spirit  of 
imperial  times  may  have  drawn  upon  the  rapidly 
shrinking  resources  of  the  past  rather  than  upon 
the  inexhaustible  treasures  contained  in  ideals  yet 
to  be  realized,  nevertheless  it  was  a  spirit.  Doubt- 
less, the  very  pride  in  this  final  accomplishment 
of  all  things — so  it  seemed  to  many — itself  spelled 
bankruptcy,  but  at  the  moment  it  sufficed  as  a 
tmifyiug  principle.  Grace  it  may  have  lacked ; 
its  graciousness  came  as  refreshing  dew  to  a  world 
parched  by  rapine,  cruelty,  and  exaction. 

"A  plurality  of  kingdoms  would  have  been  a 
hindrance  to  the  free  dissemination  of  the  doc- 
trine of  Jesus  throughout  the  whole  world."  The 
unity  favorable  to  its  most  rapid  and  easy  spread 
now  stood  forth ;  the  preparation  of  the  world 
was  complete,  and  complete  in  a  manner  hitherto 
unexampled.  Palestine  was  so  small  that  its  size 
was  frequently  matter  of  ridicule  with  the  Ro- 
mans, yet,  thanks  to  the  same  Romans,  "these 
things  were  not  done  in  a  corner."  The  mighty 
empires  of  more  ancient  date  in  the  farther  east 
had  frequently  been  manufactured,  as  it  were,  by 
daring  adventurers,  or  by  fortunate,  sometimes 
skilful,  generals.  When  their  talents  descended, 
the  dominion  carved  out  by  them  remained  for  a 
season.  But  almost  invariably  it  fell  a  prey  to 
similar  forces  generated  elsewhere  whenever  the 
original  creator,  and  his  successor,  if  he  had  one, 
passed  away.  The  enduring  states  of  former 
times,  of  Greece  for  example,  were  generally  small ; 
their  strength  lay  in  their  particularism,  with  its 
attendant  development  of  a  closely  knit  and  homo- 
geneous organization.  But  they  too  had  to  bow 
themselves,  being  too  weak  to  withstand  the  big 
battalions  of  larger  communities,  or  torn  by  those 
internal  feuds  which  are  ever  prone  to  arise  out 


156  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

of  the  contempt  bred  by  too  much  familiarity — a 
hidden  canker  of  tiny  states.  In  Uke  manner, 
the  colossal  dominion  of  Alexander  the  Great 
went  to  pieces  immediately  after  his  death,  not, 
however,  till  his  plan  of  spiritual  conquest  had 
been  fairly  launched  to  successful  issues  under 
circumstances  whereof  he  never  dreamed.  But 
the  unity  built  up  by  Rome  stood  firmly  rooted 
in  the  historical  growth  of  Roman  character  and 
in  the  unparalleled  genius  of  this  race  for  organ- 
ization and  government.  Their  magnificent  sys- 
tem of  law  was  well  calculated  to  make  a  world 
one.  Their  conquests  over  nature,  in  the  shape 
of  roads,  aqueducts,  and  splendid  towns  raised 
amid  barbarous  surroundings,  and  no  less  their 
victories  over  the  human  spirit  in  many  nations 
— victories  wrought  by  discipline,  unflinching  de- 
votion to  duty,  and  instant,  thorough  perform- 
ance of  the  work  that  lay  nearest  to  hand — had 
provided  broad  yet  deep  foundations  for  their 
final  principate.  To  be  a  Greek  or  an  Egyptian, 
a  Jew  or  a  Gaul,  was  as  nothing,  but  to  be  a  Ro- 
man citizen  was  to  become  a  person  of  consider- 
ation— the  declaration  of  citizenship  acted  like 
magic  almost  everywhere.  "  The  chief  captain 
was  also  afraid  when  he  knew  that  he  was  a  Ro- 
man, and  because  he  had  bound  him."  Slowly, 
but  all  the  more  surely,  this  unique  organization 
had  raised  itself  upon  the  ruins  of  unnumbered 
kingdoms  by  force  of  its  own  intrinsic  worth,  and 
by  this  same  merit  it  had  now  impressed  itself 
upon  the  civilized  world.  As  if  by  direct  inter- 
position of  divine  power,  civil  chaos  had  been 
transformed  into  cosmos  by  the  provision  of  law 
and  the  maintenance  of  order.  The  unity  of 
man  seemed  to  be  an  accomplished  fact.  For 
the  first  time  in  history,  humanity  could  call  it- 
self humanity  with  some  show  of  reason.     And  as 


THE   PREPARATION    OF   THE    WORLD  157 

nothing  less  than  humanity  was  the  object  of  the 
new  religion,  it  found  congenial  soil  among  those 
in  whom  the  Roman  peace  awakened  some  per- 
ception of  the  vast  issues  involved.  It  was  thus 
no  accident  that  St.  Paul's  words  on  Areopagus 
did  not  fall  on  deaf  ears  or  strike  upon  amazed 
understandings  :  "  The  God  that  made  the  world 
and  all  things  therein,  he,  being  Lord  of  heaven 
and  earth,  dwelleth  not  in  temples  made  with 
hands.  .  .  .  And  he  made  of  one  every  nation 
of  men  for  to  dwell  on  all  the  face  of  the  earth, 
having  determined  their  appointed  seasons,  and 
the  bounds  of  their  habitation."  But  for  the 
Roman  schooling,  the  Apostle  might  well  have 
cast  these  pearls  before  swine. 

This  external  unity,  with  its  underlying  causes, 
some  of  which  still  operate,  was  Rome's  con- 
structive contribution  to  the  Preparation  for  Chris- 
tianity. Here  one  can  trace  much  that  may  justly 
be  termed  strong,  permanent,  and  admirable. 
The  picture  presents  another  side,  one  that  is  too 
often  permitted  to  obscure  all  that  we  have  just 
been  considering ;  and  to  this  we  must  now  turn. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   PREPARATION    OF    THE   SPIRIT 

"We  have  all  sinned,  some  more  gravely,  others  more 
lightly.  .  .  .  Not  only  have  we  erred,  but  to  the  end 
of  time  we  shall  continue  to  err." 

The  Roman  Empire  under  the  Caesars  strictly  so 
called  (27  B.C. — 96  a.d.)  has  long  been  a  favorite 
field  of  controversy  alike  with  the  apologists  and 
critics  of  Christianity.  The  former  never  weary 
of  reminding  us  that  social  corruption  then  at- 
tained unprecedented  proportions ;  the  latter  are 
as  insistent  that  in  the  chief  writers  of  the  time 
— Tacitus,  Seneca,  Plutarch,  and  others — 
thoughts  and  aspirations  may  be  found  more 
exalted  than  any  recorded  in  early  Christian 
literature.  Such  divergences  of  opinion  are  well 
calculated  to  give  one  pause  ;  some  cause  for  them 
there  must  be,  otherwise  wilful  exaggeration  or 
blindness  cannot  but  be  charged  upon  both  sides. 
A  simple  solution  of  the  difficulty  would  be  to 
say  that  the  period  is  obscure.  Unfortunately 
this  refuge  cannot  be  considered  available.  The 
records  of  the  century  are  comparatively  full, 
more  ample  indeed  than  those  of  several  periods 
unanimously  allowed  to  be  tolerably  well  known. 
Further,  we  possess  fair  acquaintance  with  the 
elements  constitutive  of  the  prevalent  social  spirit 
— Greek  culture,  Roman  character  and  institu- 
tions, the  private  life  of  the  people,  slavery,  the 
pagan  religions,  Judaism,  the  causes  and  spread 
of  luxury,  the  imperial  systems  of  law  and  ad- 
158 


THE   PREPARATION    OF    THE   SPIRIT  1 59 

ministration,  and  so  forth.  Nay,  information  of  a 
more  or  less  precise  kind  fails  us  only  in  regard 
to  the  currents  of  oriental  thought,  more  espe- 
cially as  they  met  and  mingled  at  Alexandria,  and, 
to  a  certain  degree,  at  Rome  herself;  but  even 
here,  the  last  twenty-five  years  have  largely  in- 
creased our  store.  Accordingly,  surprise  at  the 
continued  advocacy  of  views  so  antagonistic 
deepens,  and  we  are  the  more  compelled  to  cast 
about  for  an  explanation. 

It  is  probably  just  to  say  that  the  difficulty  of 
guaging  this  epoch  maybe  traced  to  the  obstacles 
which  render  it  hard  to  adjust  perspective  prop- 
erly. With  Seneca,  and  especially  Plutarch,  in 
remembrance,  one  may  easily  err  on  the  side  of 
lenient  judgment ;  with  the  eye  on  a  page  of 
Juvenal,  or  Tacitus,  or  Suetonius,  one's  indigna- 
tion may  get  the  better  of  one's  calmness  all  too 
completely.  And  the  dilemma  is  not  simplified 
when  we  remember  that  the  former  confess  what 
they  think  of  life  on  the  whole,  the  others  state 
only  what  they  deem  wrong  in  some  character- 
istics of  certain  lives.  Yet  the  very  extremes  to 
which  Tacitus  and  Juvenal  commit  themselves 
contain  the  key  to  the  situation.  The  barriers 
that  had  hitherto  pent  up  the  motley  qualities  of 
varied  peoples  in  different  stages  of  civilization 
and  spiritual  culture  had  been  gradually  under- 
mined, now  they  had  fallen  altogether.  The 
consequence  was  a  promiscuous  junction  of  types, 
of  traits,  of  associations  the  most  diverse  imagin- 
able. And  the  immense  difficulties  incident  to  a 
judicial  estimate  of  the  period  lie  in  the  im- 
possibility, shall  we  say,  of  adjudicating  precisely 
upon  the  relative  influence  of  any  single  factor  or 
group  of  factors.  While,  then,  we  cannot  pro- 
pose to  estimate  these  elements  in  the  problem 
here,  we  may  proceed  to  view  the  preparation  of 


l6o  PREPARATION   FOR  CHRISTIANITY 

the  spirit  aware  at  least  of  the  perplexities  in- 
volved ;  we  may  strive  to  hold  an  even  balance. 

The  chief  external  accompaniment  of  the 
preparation  of  the  spirit  in  the  ancient  world  was 
the  prevalence  of  frightful  corruption  and  sense- 
less luxury.  Unsavory  as  these  are,  it  would  be 
blinking  the  truth  to  pass  them  over  in  silence. 
Society,  at  all  events  in  the  restricted  sense  of 
this  term,  was  rapidly  going  from  bad  to  worse. 
The  Caesars  themselves  embodied  the  decline. 
"  Long  before  death  ended  the  astute  comedy  in 
which  Augustus  had  so  gravely  borne  his  part,  he 
had  experienced  the  Nemesis  of  Absolutism,  and 
foreseen  the  awful  possibilities  which  it  involved. 
But  neither  he,  nor  any  one  else,  could  have 
divined  that  four  such  rulers  as  Tiberius,  Caius, 
Claudius,  and  Nero — the  first  a  sanguinary  tyrant, 
the  second  a  furious  madman,  the  third  an  uxor- 
ious imbecile,  the  fourth  a  heartless  buffoon — 
would  in  succession  afflict  and  horrify  the  world. 
Yet  these  rulers  sat  upon  the  breast  of  Rome  with 
the  paralyzing  spell  of  a  nightmare."^  Several 
elements  combined  to  heighten  the  coloring  of 
the  terrible  picture.  The  Empire  itself  had  basis 
in  force,  in  the  right  of  the  stronger,  and  the  ac- 
companiments of  this  made  themselves  felt  in  a 
widespread  contempt  for  weakness,  in  utter  lack 
of  pity  and  compassionate  helpfulness.  Slavery 
had  attained  its  greatest  development,  and  with 
it  the  feeling  of  dependence,  engendering  a  brood 
of  foul  qualities,  flourished  luxuriantly.  Men, 
when  deprived  of  rights,  are  apt  to  become  de- 
void of  righteousness,  to  serve  a  master,  no  mat- 
ter how  bad,  rather  than  God ;  and  the  slaves, 
placed  as  they  were  in  charge  of  children,  did 

J  F.  W.  Farrar,  Early  Years  of  Christianity y  pp.  10, 
II  (Popular  Edition). 


THE    PREPARATION    OF   THE    SPIRIT  l6l 

not  fail  to  impress  their  own  sordidness,  vileness, 
and  sycophancy  upon  the  rising  generation. 
Family  ties  had  been  most  seriously  weakened ; 
the  appalling  frequency  of  divorce — we  find 
women  counting  the  years  by  their  successive 
husbands ;  the  aversion  to  parental  responsibilities 
caused  by  the  encroaching  demands  of  a  luxurious 
life;  the  remnants  of  \\-\t patria potestas,  or  un- 
checked rule  of  the  father  over  his  own  house- 
hold, all  conspired  to  bring  this,  the  fundamental 
school  of  social  culture  and  moral  accountability, 
into  disfavor.  The  emperors  found  it  necessary 
to  put  a  premium,  not  merely  upon  children,  but 
upon  the  married  state  itself.  The  exposure  of 
infants  indicated  an  absence,  not  only  of  a  sense 
of  right,  but  even  of  common  humanity.  The  de- 
bauchery of  women,  not  excepting  those  in 
highest  station  and  belonging  to  the  most  reputa- 
ble families,  furnished  a  lurid  commentary  on 
the  extent  to  which  the  canker  had  spread ;  for 
here,  as  always,  the  corruption  of  the  best  is  the 
worst.  Other  nameless  vices  met  congenial  soil. 
And,  worse  than  all,  public  opinion  was  ready  to 
tolerate  anything.  The  irresponsibility,  cruelty, 
and  idleness  of  the  masses  were  witnessed  to  by 
the  unutterable  horrors  of  the  amphitheatre,  in 
which  they  took  almost  delirious  delight,  in  the 
clamor  for  distributions  of  wheat,  in  the  crowds  of 
beggars  and  would-be  respectable  parasites  who 
fawned  upon  every  rich  man  or  shouted  at  the 
government  for  bigger  shows  and  more  frequent 
largesses.  The  records  left  by  the  chief  writers 
— Juvenal,  Tacitus,  Suetonius,  Persius,  Martial — 
could  not  be  further  blackened  even  by  partisan 
criticism  ;  the  contempt  for  human  life  which 
they  everywhere  attest  can  hardly  be  realized  by 
the  modern  mind,  so  sentimental  that  it  will  dis- 
cover arguments  for  the  release  of  almost  any 


1 62  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

swinish  scoundrel  from  his  too  merciful  fate  on  the 
gallows.  To  be  brief,  immorality,  sensuousness, 
grossness,  gluttony,  cruelty,  bestiality,  sordidness, 
sycophancy,  untruthfulness  were  never  so  rife  at 
one  time  ;  and,  as  if  to  render  the  situation  even 
more  gloomy,  acts  such  as  we  should  regard  with 
1  utter  revulsion,  amounting  even  to  physical  sick- 
ness, were  perpetrated,  not  in  secret,  but  in  the 
light  of  open  day,  and  this  without  arousing  any- 
thing in  the  nature  of  serious  or  unanimous 
protest.  Moral  sense  had  become  completely 
blunted. 

We  have  already  noted  that  these  are  external 
signs  which  (such  is  the  evidence)  offer  all  too 
inviting  material  for  exaggeration,  or  perhaps  we 
had  better  say,  for  partiality.  But  the  authors 
on  whose  testimony  reliance  must  be  placed  were 
not  without  their  own  special  limitations.  The 
phenomena  of  the  day  happened  to  be  so  vast 
that  no  single  mind  could  survey  them  all.  Con- 
sequently, Juvenal  and  the  rest  report  upon  va- 
rious details ;  they  do  not  sum  up  the  predomi- 
nant spirit  of  the  age.  Moreover,  as  they  them- 
selves could  not  but  be  partakers  in  the  prevalent 
civilization,  it  was  impossible  for  them  to  see  that 
the  true  cure  for  surrounding  corruption  was  to 
be  found,  not  in  this  or  that  reform  planned  upon 
a  pattern  derived  from  the  good  old  times,  but  in 
complete  renewal  of  the  deep-seated  forces  that 
had  everywhere  brought  to  birth  such  prodigious 
declension.  While  it  cannot  be  allowed  that 
they  deliberately  falsify  the  facts,  it  is  undoubted 
that  they  nowhere  evince  insight  into  origins,  and 
are  slow  to  perceive  the  relative  proportion  of 
things — they  stood  too  near.  In  the  nature  of 
the  case,  it  could  not  appear  to  them  that  the 
vices  they  deplored  possessed  significance,  not  as 
causes,  but  only  as  effects. 


THE    PREPARATION    OF   THE   SPIRIT  1 63 

If,  then,  taking  advantage  of  the  perspective 
produced  by  the  passage  of  time,  we  ask.  What 
were  the  causes?  we  are  at  once  in  a  position  to 
see  why  it  is  so  easy  to  exaggerate  the  crimes  and 
immorahties  of  the  period.  Ahnost  certainly 
these  evils  affected  but  a  small  number,  relatively 
speaking,  of  the  Caesars'  one  hundred  million 
subjects ;  otherwise,  nothing  short  of  a  second 
flood  had  sufficed  to  cleanse  the  earth.  Almost 
certainly  they  attained  their  most  pernicious  sway 
at  Rome  herself,  and  at  the  pleasure  cities  where 
her  manners  were  aped.  A  common  people  like 
those  who  heard  Him  gladly  still  existed.  But 
this  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  the  worst 
must  be  sought  among  those  who  had  the  best  op- 
portunities for  living  out  classical  civilization  to 
the  bitter  end,  who  were  so  "  in  the  swim  "  of 
its  current  as  to  be  capable  of  glorying  in  its 
shame.  Hopelessness,  or  a  dumb  acquiescence, 
marked  the  great  body  of  the  people  far  more 
than  grovelling  in  filth  or  gourmandizing  upon 
ridiculous  dainties.  And  the  essential  point  to 
be  noted  is  that  the  unlimited  revellings  of  the 
few,  and  the  apathy  or  depression  of  the  many, 
flowed  from  a  common  source.  When  we  seek 
the  ultimate  cause,  then,  we  are  compelled  to 
conclude  that  it  must  be  elicited  from  the  spirit 
formative  of  classical  civilization  as  a  whole. 

Resuscitation  of  this  spirit  is  of  course  impos- 
sible now ;  despite  the  mistaken  efforts  of  some 
poets,  we  could  not  live  it  over  again  even  if  we 
would.  "There  is  a  gulf  between  the  Greek 
mind  and  ours  which  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  re- 
cross.  The  difference  in  language  is  the  least  of 
the  discrepancies  between  us.  We  regard  some 
of  the  most  momentous  relations  of  life  from  a 
point  of  view  quite  opposed  to  that  of  the  Greeks. 
Their  manners,  institutions,  and  historical  trail  i- 


164  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

tions  were  different  from  ours.  Physical  science 
has  disclosed  laws  and  developed  forces  of  which 
they  were  ignorant.  Our  religion  has  revealed  an 
aspect  of  reality  which  tliey  never  contemplated. 
Our  ethical  philosophy  rests  upon  another  basis. 
Our  aspirations  point  towards  other  aims.  Our 
energies  are  spent  in  other  channels ;  our  whole 
civilization  sets  in  other  courses."  But,  notwith- 
standing this,  we  can  describe  the  main  features, 
and  are  able  to  trace  the  disastrous  close  to  in- 
eradicable tendencies  inseparably  bound  up  with 
them.  The  strength  and  weakness  of  classical 
civilization  centred  in  the  prevalent  conception 
of  citizenship.  Only  in  the  political  association 
could  a  man  find  the  opportunities  necessary  to 
self-development  worthy  of  his  nature.  And  so 
long  as  circumstances  furnished  the  indispensable 
means,  this  restricted  but  social  idea  of  humanity 
flourished  and  could  be  justified.  Its  vulnerable 
point  lay  in  an  incapacity  to  admit  that  a  man 
might  be  of  value  simply  because  he  was  a  human 
being.  It  never  occurred  to  the  citizen  of  the 
city-state  that  a  career  fit  for  a  man  could  exist 
outside  the  politeia.  Hence  the  germs  of  a 
tendency  to  despise  mere  manhood  and  to  extol 
mere  citizenship.  Rights  of  man  as  man  meant 
nothing,  duties  of  citizens  as  citizens  circum- 
scribed the  horizon.  So  long  as  the  city-state, 
whether  in  Greece  or  under  the  Roman  Republic 
. — for  Rome  was  as  much  2.  politeia  as  Athens  or 
Sparta — supplied  a  civic  career  equal  to  absorbing 
the  capacities  of  its  best  sons,  all  went  well,  so 
well  that  to  this  we  chiefly  owe  the  priceless  ben- 
efits transmitted  to  us  by  that  old  Greeco-Roman 
world.  But  when  the  Greek  state  fell,  citizen- 
ship waned  till  it  became  a  parody  upon  its  for- 
mer self,  while  the  Greeks  still  remained  men 


THE    PREPARATION    OF    THE    SPIRIT  1 65 

prompted  and  torn  by  the  aspirations  peculiar  to 
manhood. 

In  Rome  the  same  story  repeated  itself,  and 
with  increased  intensity  ;  in  imperial  times  it  was 
dangerous  even  to  attempt  to  fulfil  the  functions 
of  a  devoted  citizen.  Classical  civilization  in  its 
prime  had  solved  the  problem  of  social  life  for 
freemen.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  problem 
of  personality  had  never  strayed  within  its  range, 
nay,  there  was  no  room  for  it — its  bare  import 
would  have  fallen  upon  deaf  ears.  Yet  when  the 
ancient  solution  passed  away  for  ever  this  ques- 
tion still  held  its  ground,  clamoring,  as  it  has 
done  through  all  the  ages,  for  some  adequate  re- 
ply. The  conditions  requisite  for  an  answer  were 
as  yet  unassembled.  And  not  merely  this.  The 
associations  of  citizenship  continued  so  to  limit 
vision  that  the  value  of  life,  simply  because  it  is 
human,  could  not  be  realized.  Nevertheless — 
and  here  we  light  upon  the  paradox — for  the  vast 
majority  life  had  ceased  to  possess  any  worth  ex- 
cept as  human,  and  so  reckless  disregard  of  it 
must  be  viewed  as  at  once  effect  of  bygone  ex- 
cellence and  cause  of  present  and  future  decline. 
Man  had  nothing  left  to  him  but  life,  and  yet 
there  was  none  so  poor  as  to  pay  him  homage  for 
his  simple  humanity.  The  state,  in  the  motley 
of  imperial  caprice,  now  reigned  supreme ;  all 
citizens  had  disappeared  except  one.  Despite 
this,  their  gaze  attracted  by  the  mighty  past,  men 
were  unanimously,  if  unconsciously,  leagued  in  a 
common  pact  to  overlook  their  rights  as  men,  and  so 
to  trifle  with  life,  although  they  had  been  stripped 
of  every  other  possession.  The  entire  temper 
of  the  civilization  lent  its  weight  to  this  delusion 
— emphasized  this  world-embracing  paradox.  A 
citizen  had  ever  been  the  chattel  of  his  city ;  a 
child,  of  his  father ;  a  wife,  of  her  husband  ;  a 


1 66  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

slave,  of  his  master.  Service  to  his  peers  in  re- 
turn for  their  ministry,  contempt  to  his  inferiors, 
constituted  the  citizen's  dole.  So,  amid  civic 
inanition  man's  proverbial  inhumanity  to  man 
was  provided  with  excellent  forcing  ground.  To 
the  disregard — nay,  the  strange  unconsciousness 
— of  the  worth  of  personality,  of  man  as  a  hu- 
man being,  we  must  trace  the  rapid  social  disin- 
tegration and  the  spreading  anti-social  spirit  of 
imperial  times.  Humanity  was  sweeping  and 
garnishing  its  soul  after  its  own  sufiiciently  per- 
plexing manner. 

If  we  inquire  what  resources  this  old  concep- 
tion of  life  possessed,  we  are  enabled  to  penetrate 
still  farther  toward  the  seat  of  the  dire  disease. 
Graeco-Roman  paganism,  as  its  name  implies, 
drew  upon  the  ancient  Greek  worship,  most  fa- 
miliar to  us  in  Homer,  and  upon  Roman  charac- 
ter, as  expressed  in  Roman  achievements  under 
varied  circumstances,  rather  than  through  a  sin- 
gle literary  medium.  Virgil  never  became  the 
bible  of  a  race.  In  its  prime,  Greek  paganism 
gave  expression  to  that  homelike  feeling  in  the 
beautiful  world  and  in  social  life  which  the  in- 
habitants of  Hellas  first  fully  realized.  The  myth 
of  Qi^dipus  and  the  Sphinx  throws  a  vivid  light 
upon  its  origins.  The  Sphinx,  a  mysterious 
monster,  half-brute,  half-woman,  sat  at  the  top 
of  a  precipice  and  propounded  the  riddle  :  What 
is  it  that  in  the  morning  goes  upon  four  legs,  at 
noon  upon  two,  and  in  the  evening  upon  three  ? 
Many  heroes  before  Agamemnon  attempted  reply 
and  failed,  only  to  be  crushed  by  the  monster  and, 
thrown  down  the  declivity,  to  perish  miserably. 
But  OEdipus,  the  fabled  and  unfortunate  King  of 
Thebes,  made  his  way  to  the  dread  spot  and,  on 
hearing  the  problem,  answered,  Man  ;  whereupon 
the  Sphinx  herself  fell  down  the  rocks  and  was 


THE   PREPARATION   OF   THE   SPIRIT  1 67 

shattered.  The  myth  implies  that  the  Greeks 
were  the  first  to  perceive  that  the  mystery  of  the 
universe  cuhiii nates  in  man.  And  if  Hellenic  pa- 
ganism be  taken  at  its  best,  one  is  forced  to  ad- 
mit the  justice  of  this  interpretation.  Man,  being 
the  crown  of  creation,  began  to  make  gods  in  his 
own  image.  The  qualities  that  marked  off  the 
Greek  citizen  from  the  half-human,  and  entirely 
inhumane,  barbarian  came  to  be  idealized,  and 
found  body  in  the  perfected  forms  of  physical 
manhood  which  the  Greeks  so  admired  and  cher- 
ished. While  the  civilization  that  nurtured  this 
religion  and  worship  lasted,  things  preserved 
their  sweetness.  But,  as  time  passed  and  the 
savor  began  to  escape,  the  gods,  just  because 
they  stood  so  close  to  men,  also  showed  signs  of 
change.  They  took  on  less  reputable  qualities ; 
it  was  not  difficult  to  laugh  off  defects  that  were 
now  revealing  themselves  by  pointing  to  their  like 
on  Olympus.  Craft  was  grafted  upon  wisdom, 
sensuality  upon  beauty,  license  upon  power.  And, 
long  before  the  Roman  period,  the  Greeks  had 
discovered  that  their  gods  were  not  such  estima- 
ble characters  after  all ;  the  cultivated  had  shown 
that  an  adulterous  Zeus,  an  abandoned  Aphrodite, 
or  a  scolding  Hera  did  not  blazon  forth  ideals  so 
worthily  as  past  generations  had  believed.  With 
this  reflection  present  to  many  minds  so  early  as 
Plato's  time,  it  was  inevitable  that,  in  the  lapse 
of  several  centuries,  unbelief,  culminating  in  open 
mockery,  should  overtake  the  whole  pantheon. 
And  when  Greek  culture  came  into  efficient  con- 
tact with  Roman  character,  the  old  reverence  had 
well-nigh  departed ;  the  ideals  had  ceased  to  en- 
liven, and  with  them  religious  inspiration  had 
taken  flight.  Oracles  and  mysteries,  institutions 
that  savored  something  too  much  of  superstition, 
alone  preserved  semblance  of  authority. 


1 68  PREPARATION   FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

Among  the  Romans  a  similar  decline  had  been 
in  process,  but,  thanks  to  the  contrasted  char- 
acteristics of  the  ancient  Roman  religion,  it  ap- 
peared in  another  guise.  It  may  be  affirmed  that, 
as  a  general  rule,  the  Greek  and  Roman  minds 
I  were  alike  in  their  quickness  to  seize  upon  and  to 
^  idealize  outstanding  social  qualities.  But  here 
likeness  ended.  Roman  genius  developed  a  dif- 
ferent fibre,  and  so  the  Latin  people  worshipped 
other  gods,  although  they  latterly  adopted  the 
Greek  names,  and  took  counsel  with  the  Hellenic 
deities,  so  far  Romanized.  The  ancient  Roman 
religion,  then,  grew  up,  not  so  much  round 
Roman  qualities,  as  in  connection  with  particular 
events  pertaining  to  Roman  social  life.  Hence 
the  importance  of  **  auspices  " — a  kind  of  divina- 
tion— which  had  to  be  read  ere  any  serious  un- 
dertaking could  be  begun  favorably.  Deaths, 
births,  anniversaries,  especially  those  pertaining 
to  the  family  and  city,  occupied  an  important 
place.  The  natural  influences  surrounding  man's 
life  were  also  matters  of  much  moment.  The 
gods  of  the  city,  of  the  fields,  of  the  sea,  of  the 
woods,  of  thunder  and  lightning  exercised  wide 
influence  in  the  religious  economy.  In  a  word, 
the  old  Roman  cult  was  a  worship  of  many  pro- 
tecting spirits,  not  of  a  number  of  personified  be- 
ings, more  or  less  akin  to  men,  as  with  the 
Greeks.  Or,  if  one  likes  so  to  put  it,  there  was 
richer  opportunity  for  the  free  play  of  supersti- 
tion. Magic,  divination,  necromancy,  prophecy, 
interpretation  of  dreams,  the  apparition  of  signs 
and  wonders  here  found  more  congenial  soil. 
Religion  thus  took  on  a  body  of  life  such  as  it 
never  possessed  with  the  Greeks — there  was  a 
priesthood,  an  order  of  men  specially  skilled  in 
these  affairs.  Further,  from  the  earliest  historical 
times,  the  religion  developed  by  accretion.    That 


THE   PREPARATION   OF  THE   SPIRIT  1 69 

is  to  say,  Rome  adopted  as  her  own  many  of  the 
deities  special  to  conquered  cities  and  tribes,  be- 
ginning with  the  tutelary  god  of  long  forgotten 
Alba.  At  first,  coming  as  they  did  from  neigh- 
boring peoples,  these  were  somewhat  like  the 
Roman  gods  proper — nature  powers,  guardians 
of  social  events,  or  abstractions, — that  is,  single 
qualities  so  far  personified.  Lacking  the  brilliant 
semi-oriental  imagination,  the  worshippers  of 
these  gods  did  not  surround  them  with  a  radiant 
or  highly  colored  atmosphere.  The  deities 
tended  to  stand  aloof  from  man,  they  possessed  a 
distinctive  nature  of  their  own,  and  priests  were 
necessary,  not  merely  as  experts  in  magic  and  so 
forth,  but  as  intermediaries.  Nevertheless,  with 
the  contact  of  Greek  civilization  the  process  of 
personification  proceeded  apace  ;  the  gods  stepped 
down  to  their  devotees  as  it  were,  familiarity 
increased,  with  the  natural  consequence  of  con- 
tempt, especially  when  reflective  thought  gained 
currency.  Years  prior  to  Augustus  these  in- 
fluences had  produced  their  destined  effects. 
Roman  toleration  itself  tended  to  breed  indiffer- 
ence, the  very  crowd  of  deities — they  might  be 
counted  by  hundreds  in  the  later  pantheon — pro- 
duced a  confusion  little  favorable  to  the  exalta- 
tion of  any  one  who  had  already  received  the 
"  honor"  of  admission.  Amid  material  successes 
appreciation  of  the  spiritual  was  rapidly  losing 
vigor,  and  meaning  had  so  far  evaporated  from 
the  old  religious  observances  that  they  had  be- 
come largely  mechanical.  Greek  scepticism 
completed  the  disintegration.  Thus,  on  the 
whole,  Grseco-Roman  paganism  sufficed  but  little 
in  the  imperial  period  ;  the  ancient  oracles  of 
both  religions  were  either  dead  or  in  a  state 
bordering  on  inanition.  Driven  by  the  pressure 
of  events,  man,  the  individual  citizen  whose  vo- 


1 7©  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

cation  had  been  filched  from  him,  knew  not 
where  to  look ;  when  he  did  look,  he  cast  a  long- 
ing gaze  backward,  and  so  committed  himself 
unwittingly,  if  not  unwillingly,  to  a  moribund 
past. 

In  addition  to  these  resources  in  Grseco-Roman 
paganism  itself,  human  aspiration,  thanks  to  the 
cosmopolitan  spirit  of  the  time,  was  enabled  to 
draw  also  upon  the  religions  of  the  farther  East, 
especially  of  the  great  province  Egypt,  fertile  in 
this  as  in  other  respects.  What  drafts  were  to  be 
made  upon  them  we  shall  see  presently. 

As  has  been  indicated  in  the  last  chapter, 
Augustus  assumed  the  imperial  purple  amid  many 
manifestations  of  approval,  if  not  of  joy.  Even 
before  the  defeat  of  Antony,  his  rule  caused 
popular  hopes  to  rise  high.  Sick  of  a  hundred 
years'  war  and  rapine,  all  longed  for  the  deliver- 
ance which  only  peace  could  bring.  Expectancy 
was  the  note  of  the  age  and,  for  a  time,  the 
Empire  sufficed  to  stay  material  fears  and  reli- 
gious doubts.  At  length,  peace  on  earth  and  the 
negative  goodwill  to  man  implied  in  repression  of 
disturbance  appeared  to  have  been  realized, 
while  the  concentration  of  everything  great  upon 
a  single  personality — the  ruler,  dispenser  of  jus- 
tice, and  universal  high  priest — surrounded  the 
Caesar  with  a  halo  that  ultimately  led  to  his 
deification ;  he  seemed  no  less  than  the  incarna- 
tion of  Providence.  At  the  birth  of  Christ,  and 
for  half  a  generation  thereafter,  apocalyptic  long- 
ings thus  served  themselves  with  a  species  of  sat- 
isfaction. But  the  Caesarean  brood  was  soon  to 
disturb  this  well-omened  dream,  and  the  yearn- 
ings of  a  universe  were  destined  to  burst  out 
again  the  more  strongly  that  they  had  been 
balked  of  fulfilment  almost  within  reach. 
Shortly    after    the    Christian    communities  had 


THE    PREPARATION    OF   THE    SPIRIT  171 

grown  up  at  Rome  and  other  popular  centres — 
between  the  reigns  of  Nero  and  Vespasian — dis- 
satisfaction born  of  hope  deferred  was  to  attain 
its  profoundest,  most  significant  depth.  To  pre- 
pare the  human  spirit  more  effectually,  the  con- 
structive tendencies  of  the  first  Caesar  had  to 
pass  away  together  with  the  swelling  anticipa- 
tions they  had  served  to  raise.  The  imperial  god, 
who  had  bidden  fair  to  become  the  centre  of  a 
life-giving  cult,  turned  out  so  often  to  be  a  devil 
in  human  shape  that  many  men  at  once  descried 
his  emptiness,  and  gave  him  over  to  the  doubt  or 
mockery  already  so  plenteously  bestowed  upon 
the  deities  of  the  past.  Citizenship  shrunk  to 
nothing,  rights  controlled  by  uncontrolled  mon- 
sters, men  were  cast  back  upon  their  own  re- 
sources, which  now  consisted  of  selfhood.  Re- 
ligion bereft  of  its  ancient  influence,  faith  dead 
or  unfruitful,  most  of  the  gods  known  for  proved 
impostors,  the  human  spirit  sought  means  of  sal- 
vation elsewhere.  Life  empty  or  hopeless,  thou- 
sands tried  to  drown  the  very  fact  of  its  existence 
in  a  ceaseless  round  of  brutalizing  pleasures,  from 
which,  however,  some  few  shrank  in  sheer  self- 
disgust.  Tiie  Greek  polytheism  could  offer  no 
cure,  its  gods  stood  too  near  men,  were  too  much 
sinners  after  man's  kind.  The  Roman  religion 
that  once  was  had  stereotyped  itself  into  a  formal 
affair,  a  parade  of  rites  and  ceremonies  useful,  if 
not  necessary,  as  statutory  observances  connected 
with  undertakings  of  state,  but  bearing  no  mes- 
sage to  the  soul  in  its  dread  communings  with 
self.     Where  was  a  man  to  look  ? 

Moribund  though  it  may  have  been.  Paganism 
as  a  system  was  not  by  any  means  dead,  and  with 
no  other  resources  in  sight  many  turned  towards  it 
eagerly.  The  superstitious  elements  in  Gra^co- 
Roman  worship  grew  portentously.     The  Greek 


172  PREPARATION    FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

Mysteries  spread  everywhere,  not  now  in  the 
form  of  important  public  festivals,  but  as  privately 
managed  events  peculiarly  suited  to  the  situation 
of  those  more  immediately  associated  with  the 
special  occasion.  Soothsaying  and  other  magical 
factors  in  Roman  religion  also  waxed,  and  multi- 
tudes were  ready  to  place  implicit  faith  in  any 
charlatan  who  might  profess  to  penetrate  the 
future  for  them  or  proffer  guidance  by  feats  of 
necromancy,  sleight  of  hand,  or  what  not. 
Idolatry  of  the  exceptional  favored  such  abomi- 
nable quacks.  More,  perhaps,  than  to  either  the 
ancient  Mysteries  or  the  old  Divination,  the 
populace  rushed  to  cults  that  breathed  of  strange- 
ness or  mystery.  One  of  the  most  remarkable 
features  of  this  pagan  reaction  was  the  marvellous 
growth  of  converts  to  the  Eastern  faiths,  espe- 
cially to  those  of  Egypt.  If  the  Greek  gods  had 
been  too  like  men,  and  if  their  free,  joyous  life 
consorted  but  ill  with  a  period  of  universal 
melancholy,  no  such  backslidings  could  be 
charged  upon  Isis.  Gloomy,  mysterious,  and 
wondrously  effective  in  her  supposed  interposi- 
tions, her  sombre  temples,  redolent  of  a  revelation 
consecrated  and  expanded  to  portentous  propor- 
tions by  its  antiquity,  attracted  numberless  ad- 
herents. Belief  in  the  wonderful  and  im- 
probable, so  bounteously  fed  by  the  warm- 
l3looded  oriental  faiths,  with  their  unrestrained 
imaginings,  exercised  most  potent  sway.  If  the 
records  run  true,  there  was  scarce  a  licentious 
excess,  an  absurd  or  brutalizing  ceremony,  a 
ludicrous  supposition  to  which  men  would  not  fly 
in  their  desperate  desire  to  find  some  rock 
whereon  they  might  perchance  plant  firm  feet. 
Omens,  too,  took  out  a  new  lease  of  life,  dreams 
became  so  charged  with  significance  as  to  de- 
mand detailed  interpretation,  prodigies  flourished 


THE   PREPARATION    OF   THE    SPIRIT  1 73 

in  unparalleled  profusion.  While,  if  by  such 
means  a  man  deemed  himself  brought  nearer  the 
supposed  divine  nature,  he  would  beat,  starve, 
drink,  mutilate,  or  physically  exhaust  himself — 
often  in  nameless  ways — into  a  hell-begotten 
kingdom  of  heaven.  "  First  come  aimless  move- 
ments and  weary  hurrying  to  and  fro,  and 
anxious  unsanctified  wanderings  through  a  certain 
obscurity.  Then  before  the  initiation  itself,  all 
manner  of  hardship,  horror  and  trembling,  sweat 
and  astonishment.  After  this  a  wondrous  light 
breaks  upon  them,  or  they  are  received  in  de- 
lightful places  and  meadows,  full  of  voices, 
choirs,  and  reverent,  holy  songs  and  sights. 
Through  these  the  now  initiated  neophyte  goes  his 
way,  released  and  at  liberty ;  and,  crowned  with 
flowers,  holds  festival  in  company  with  pure  and 
holy  men,  gazing  here  over  the  uninitiated  multi- 
tude of  the  living,  crushed  and  trodden  down  by 
one  another  in  deep  mire  and  fog,  and  clinging 
to  the  good  things  of  their  world  in  fear  of 
death,  amid  misery  and  unbelief."  Never  had 
humanity  been  so  swept  and  garnished  spiritually, 
never  had  it  been  so  completely  possessed  of 
seven,  or  seventy,  devils  worse  than  the  first. 

But  all  such  vague  enthusiasms,  with  their  piti- 
ful endeavors  to  achieve  spiritual  ends  by  un- 
spiritual  means,  are  destined,  no  matter  when  or 
where,  to  result  in  momentary  elevation  suc- 
ceeded by  depression  far  more  lengthened  than 
that  from  which  they  seductively  promise  escape. 
And  amid  all  this  excess — ''In  all  things  I  per- 
ceive that  ye  are  somewhat  superstitious,"  as  St. 
Paul  has  it — another  and  even  more  significant 
trait  was  making  its  presence  felt.  Outer  joy 
there  may  have  been  among  the  discordant 
trumpetings  of  many  religions,  inner  craving 
there  was,  the  more  subtle  and  diffused  that  re- 


174  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

ligion  itself  was  lacking.  When,  in  moments  of 
serious  reflection,  men  came  to  examine  them- 
selves, their  doubts  had  the  better  of  their  varie- 
gated superstitions,  and  a  sense  of  defect,  natur- 
ally accompanied  by  a  craving  for  effective  de- 
liverance, began  to  extend.  With  this,  a  truer 
insight  into  the  implications  of  the  entire  con- 
temporary situation  asserted  itself  here  and 
there.  The  Eastern  religions,  superstitious  and 
debasing,  licentious  and  degrading  though  they 
were,  combined  to  procure  one  principal  result. 
They  obviated  the  danger  so  threatening  under  a 
vast  material  organization  like  an  empire  ruled 
by  a  people  whose  temperament  rendered  their 
kingdom  essentially  of  this  world.  In  these  cir- 
cumstances, hold  upon  the  spiritual  might  easily 
have  slipped  quite  away.  The  oriental  faiths 
served  to  remind  the  imperial  Romans  of  that 
unseen  and  eternal  universe  as  yet  unconquered 
by  them,  and  not  to  be  taken  by  force  of  arms. 
This  revivified  conviction,  backed  by  a  sense  of 
shortcoming,  never  far  from  finer  spirits,  origi- 
nated a  longing  for  deliverance,  for  salvation. 
The  reality  of  the  inner  life  and  its  ubiquitousness 
were  preached,  often  fantastically  enough,  by  the 
imaginative  orientals;  while,  as  a  force  operating 
in  the  same  direction,  the  examination  of  self — 
moral  ''stock-taking" — grew  out  of  the  soul- 
scrutiny  which  some  of  the  philosophical  systems 
involved.  The  latter  was  the  more  important 
movement,  because  incomparably  the  more  form- 
ative, definite,  and  sure  of  itself.  Driven  back 
upon  his  own  individuality,  the  citizen  whose 
vocation  had  passed  away  turned  to  criticise  him- 
self, and  in  the  inner  life  he  at  length  lighted 
upon  that  unending  conflict  of  the  soul,  the 
struggle  between  what  a  man  is  and  what  he 
would  fain  become.     "  We  must  seek  out  some 


THE   PREPARATION   OF   THE   SPIRIT  175 

noble  man  whom  to  have  continually  before  our 
eyes,  so  that  we  live  as  if  he  regarded  us,  and  al- 
ways act  as  if  he  saw  the  action."  "  Keep  one 
in  your  heart  to  honor  him  with  a  reverence  that 
can  sanctify  your  inmost  being."  But  the 
"  noble  man  "  and  the  "  one  "  could  not  be  dis- 
covered in  the  flesh  ;  the  ideal  to  be  pursued  re- 
mained an  ideal — a  mere  verbal  formula  without 
living  exemplification.  Broadly,  then,  two  con- 
trasted spiritual  states  coexisted  in  this  seething 
multitude.  The  masses  were  chiefly  given  over 
to  grossest  superstition  ;  the  reflective,  highly 
educated,  and  spiritually-minded,  when  they 
were  not  scoffers,  experienced  the  inextricable 
difficulties  peculiar  to  the  apocalyptic  condition 
of  the  time,  and  sought  to  withdraw  into  self  so 
that,  by  leaving  the  sensuous  behind,  they  might 
l)e  free  to  think  out  the  requisite  plan  of  salvation. 
The  former  were  turned  to  higher  thoughts  when 
they  happened  to  adopt  the  religion  of  the  Jews 
from  among  the  many  competing  faiths,  and  so 
were  led  to  learn  something  of  an  unseen  deity, 
whose  image  could  not  be  made  with  hands. 
The  latter  reached  their  most  elevated  levels  in 
the  teaching  of  the  Stoics,  who,  indeed,  were  the 
true  ministers  of  religion  at  the  moment.  Such 
formative  hope  as  there  happened  to  be  thus  con- 
centrated upon  the  Dispersion  and  the  Stoa. 
These  supplied  the  only  sources  whence  relative 
satisfaction  could  be  distilled. 

The  Jews  of  the  Dispersion  not  only  revealed 
some  positive  and  higher  doctrines  to  a  supersti- 
tious and  bewildered  world,  but  they  also  pre- 
pared the  way  for  the  reception  of  the  Gospel 
with  conspicuous  success.  Nearly  a  century  and 
a  half  before  Christ,  Jewish  colonies  had  been 
planted  all  over  Syria,  Asia  Minor,  and  Egypt, 
whence  they  eventually  spread  to  Rome  herself. 


176  PREPARATION   FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

These  communities,  favored  by  successive  mon- 
archs,  made  wonderful  material  strides,  and  in 
Alexandria  we  find  the  Jews  forming  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  population  and  controlling  im- 
portant trades,  such  as  the  traffic  in  wheat  with 
Rome.  Owing  to  their  homogeneity  and  devo- 
tion to  their  peculiar  customs,  with  a  resultant 
capacity  for  rendering  themselves  obnoxious,  the 
authorities  were  little  willing  to  seek  conflict  with 
them,  and  so,  in  process  of  time,  they  came  to 
acquire  certain  privileges,  greatly  to  the  disgust 
of  their  pagan  fellow-subjects,  by  whom  they 
were  feared,  misunderstood,  and  hated.  For  ex- 
ample, they  were  not  required  to  worship  the 
emperor,  nor  to  serve  in  the  armies ;  and  in  the 
government  distributions  of  grain  and  oil  the 
right  to  receive  the  money  value  of  their  share  of 
the  **  unclean  "  commodities  had  been  conceded 
them.  The  impression  they  had  thus  contrived 
to  make  upon  the  authorities  told  on  the  other 
side  with  the  masses.  Instead  of  looking  back 
to  half-dead  customs,  the  Jews  kept  their  eyes 
upon  the  future ;  much  of  their  extraordinary 
racial  energy  and  clannishness  was  traceable  to 
their  hope  that  a  glorious  age,  wherein  they  were 
to  figure  as  leading  actors,  was  destined  soon  to 
dawn.  Coupled  with  this,  and  exercising  in- 
fluence of  a  similar  kind,  was  their  wholly  justifi- 
able conviction  of  their  moral  superiority,  to 
which  St.  Paul  bears  such  unmistakable  witness  : 
*'But  if  thou  bearest  the  name  of  a  Jew,  and 
restest  upon  the  law,  and  gloriest  in  God,  and 
knowest  his  will,  and  approvest  the  things  that 
are  excellent,  being  instructed  out  of  the  law,  and 
art  confident  that  thou  thyself  art  a  guide  of 
the  blind,  a  light  of  them  that  are  in  dark- 
ness, a  corrector  of  the  foolish,  a  teacher  of 
babes,  having  in  the  law  the  form  of  knowledge 


THE   PREPARATION   OF   THE   SPIRIT  1 77 

and  of  the  truth ;  thou  therefore  that  teachest 
another,  teachest  thou  not  thyself?  "  The  unity 
of  observances  and  of  effort  that  characterized 
all  Jewish  doings  could  not  fail  to  convince  some 
at  least  of  the  validity  of  these  pretensions,  while, 
of  course,  it  aroused  opposition  or  contempt 
amongst  others,  principally  the  cultured,  well- 
born, or  sceptical.  Yet  the  essential  superiority 
of  the  Jews  lay,  not  merely  in  themselves,  but  in 
the  conditions  so  eminently  characteristic  of  the 
age.  As  against  the  numerous  petty  deities  of 
the  pagan  pantheon,  they  possessed  the  prophetic 
conception  of  Jehovah — one  sublime  god,  invis- 
ible, because  spiritual,  moral,  righteous,  far  re- 
moved from  the  mire  where  foolish  humanity 
struggled.  This,  together  with  their  immemorial 
Messianic  expectation,  lent  their  religion  a  mo- 
tive force  such  as  none  of  its  competitors  enjoyed. 
Moreover,  through  the  Greek  translation  of  the 
Old  Testament,  known  as  the  Septuagint,  all 
men  could  familiarize  themselves  with  these  in- 
spiriting conceptions,  or  could  obtain  competent 
instruction  and  sober  withal,  concerning  them  at 
a  synagogue.  Thus  it  happened  that  the  Jews 
made  many  proselytes,  some  of  whom  themselves 
became  "strict"  Jews,  in  so  far  as  legal  strict- 
ness applied  at  a  distance  from  ecclesiastical 
Jerusalem,  and  under  the  wear  and  tear  of  pagan 
surroundings ;  while  others  gave  an  undertaking 
to  maintain  a  benevolent  neutrality  toward  He- 
brew usages  and  faith.  In  Rome,  a  microcosm  of 
the  Empire,  this  proselytizing  proved  eminently 
successful,  and  penetrated  even  to  the  entourage 
of  the  sovereign.  The  new  conception  of  Moses 
as  the  Saviour,  emanating  from  Alexandria,  also 
attracted  some  who  longed  for  a  concrete  media- 
tion. Indeed,  so  marked  was  the  propaganda, 
that  it  is  conceivable,  had  persecution  not  lifted 


178  PREPARATION   FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

its  baleful  head,  Judaism  might  have  become  the 
most  influential  among  the  many  faiths  compet- 
ing for  supremacy  throughout  the  Empire. 

But  persecution  came,  in  the  reign  of  Caligula, 
and,  as  in  the  past,  the  Jews  once  more  fell  back 
upon  the  national  ideal.  Their  extraordinary 
bitterness  toward  Christianity,  and  their  insist- 
ence upon  observance  of  the  Law,  which  at  once 
differentiated  them  in  the  eyes  of  the  masses 
from  the  Galilean  sect,  were  natural  accompani- 
ments of  the  disturbance  created  by  this  inter- 
ference. So,  of  its  own  accord,  the  Jewish  faith 
abandoned  its  opportunity,  but  not  until  it  had 
cleared  the  path  for  its  successor.  It  had  famil- 
iarized many  with  some  Christian  conceptions, 
had  generated  an  enthusiasm  which,  with  but 
slight  immediate  changes  of  standpoint,  could  be 
enlisted  by  the  Christian  propaganda.  Like 
Judaism,  Christianity  preached  one  holy  God  ;  it 
harbored  at  this  time  a  similar  apocalyptic  view 
of  the  future;  and  it  turned  upon  a  concrete 
ideal,  not  more  or  less  problematic,  like  the 
Messianic  expectation,  but  realized  here  and  now 
in  the  life  of  Jesus.  The  prophecy  of  Haggai 
seemed  to  be  destined  to  immediate  fulfilment : 
"Yet  once,  it  is  a  little  while,  and  I  will  shake 
the  heavens,  and  the  earth,  and  the  sea,  and  the 
dry  land ;  and  I  will  shake  all  nations,  and  the 
desirable  things  of  all  nations  shall  come,  and  I 
will  fill  this  house  with  glory,  saith  the  Lord  of 
hosts.  .  .  .  The  latter  glory  of  this  house  shall 
be  greater  than  the  former,  saith  the  Lord  of 
hosts  ;  and  in  this  place  will  I  give  peace,  saith 
the  Lord  of  hosts."  Furthermore,  the  abroga- 
tion of  the  obnoxious  Law,  the  cancelling  of 
all  particularism,  and  the  extension  of  equal 
privileges  to  the  Gentiles  lent  Christianity  an  at- 
tractiveness in  pagan  eyes  such  as  Judaism  could 


THE   PREPARATION   OF   THE   SPIRIT  1 79 

never  exercise,  an  attraction,  too,  which  it  tended 
to  forego  more  and  more,  subsequent  to  the  per- 
secutions of  tlie  first  century.  Thus  the  Disper- 
sion paved  a  way  for  the  Gospel.  Men  had  been 
here  taught  what  a  religion  involved;  they  had 
glimmerings  of  something  sufficing  to  the  per- 
sonal needs  of  each,  and  the  doctrine  of  one 
god,  towards  which  heathenism  was  involuntarily 
moving,  had  been  fervently  enforced.  But  these 
alluring  elements  had  hitherto  been  offered  un- 
der restrictions.  Christianity  further  enlivened 
them  with  its  universalism,  and  as  this  quality 
harmonized  with  a  leading  political  principle  of 
the  age,  and  had  received  embodiment  in  legal 
enactments,  the  new  religion  entered  upon  the 
field,  which  the  older  had  so  far  cleared,  with  an 
initial  momentum  strangely  prepared  for  it 
through  the  ages,  and  as  strangely  made  over  as 
a  free  gift  now.  The  Hellenized  Jews  presented 
humanity  with  a  living  faith  and  a  real  religion 
shorn  of  some  of  the  excrescences — as  they 
seemed  to  the  Graeco-Roman  world — peculiar  to 
Palestinian  Judaism  ;  it  only  remained  for  Chris- 
tianity to  complete  the  liberation  of  the  spirit  from 
the  remanent  literalism  and  formalism,  to  vivify 
worship  by  pointing  to  the  accomplished  work  and 
regenerating  personality  of  the  Mediator.  In 
their  freedom  from  artificial  accidentals,  in  their 
enthusiasm  for  a  living  Saviour,  in  their  apprecia- 
tion of  the  infinite  worth  of  man's  spirit,  the 
Christians  entered  upon  the  partial  Jewish  con- 
quest certain  of  final  and  universal  victory. 
"  The  secret  of  the  rapid  spread  of  Christianity 
is  not,  as  has  so  often  been  said,  the  unity  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  but  the  pervading  presence  of 
the  Jewish  nation,  whose  ramifications  spread 
over  both  the  great  empires  of  the  world,  the 
Roman  and  the  Parthian." 


l8o  PREPARATION   FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

If  the  constructive  work  of  the  Dispersion  pre- 
pared masses — social  groups — for  the  reception  of 
Christianity,  a  similar  office  was  performed  for 
individuals  by  the  Stoics,  who  especially  appealed 
to  men  of  culture  and  moral  intensity.  When 
Stoicism  came  into  contact  with  Roman  char- 
acter, it  found  itself  exposed  to  influences  that 
eventually  altered  its  scope.  The  point  of  central 
interest  ceased  to  be  nature,  or  logic,  or  the  rela- 
tion of  a  man  to  the  universal  reason.  The  lead- 
ing exponents  of  the  school  concentrated  their 
thought  increasingly  upon  questions  of  duty,  and 
in  the  provision  of  answers  they  were  not 
ashamed  to  seek  assistance  from  other,  and  even 
hostile,  systems.  Perhaps  the  most  significant 
indication  of  this  eclectic  tendency  is  traceable 
in  the  view,  derived  from  Platonism,  that  matter, 
and  the  body  as  a  part  of  matter,  cannot  but  be 
ultimately  evil — they  contain  a  bad  element 
which  no  available  means  can  expel  utterly. 
Shut  up  in  the  body,  a  man  is  thus  preordained 
to  sin  and  to  go  on  sinning.  The  circumstances 
of  the  Roman  world  proved  highly  favorable  to 
the  intensification  of  this  sense  of  defect ;  and 
the  necessity  of  withdrawal,  of  search  for  the 
good  in  the  one  place  where  it  cannot  be  found 
— self — came  to  be  enforced  with  growing 
earnestness.  When  thought  was  thus  directed 
inward,  another  conviction  began  to  formulate 
itself  with  the  reflective  mind.  "  We  have  all  of 
us  erred,  some  more  grievously,  others  more 
lightly.  .  .  .  And  not  only  have  we  trans- 
gressed, we  shall  stumble  to  the  uttermost  end  of 
our  life."  ^'  The  human  spirit  is  by  nature  per- 
verse, and  hankers  after  tlie  forbidden  and  the 
perilous."  Not  only  the  body,  but  the  very  soul 
is  the  seat  of  an  incurable  disease.  The  self-con- 
tained individual  who  harbors  the  sole  ideal  of 


THE    PREPARATION    OF   THE    SPIRIT  l8l 

life,  must,  at  the  last,  pass  condemnation  upon 
himself.  From  this  latest  conviction  rose  the  all- 
important  perception  of  the  need  for  salvation. 
God  Himself  must  somehow  come  and  change 
the  soul,  so  as  to  fit  it  to  exercise  its  ruling  office 
in  life.  The  need  which  Christianity  alone  could 
supply  was  here  finally  discovered,  and  the 
sorrow,  sadness,  hopelessness  of  the  last  great 
Stoics  had  found  end  even  while  they  were  medi- 
tating on  its  cause.  One  soul  had  overcome  self 
and  the  world  ;  and  the  message  rang  out.  Be  ye 
as  He  was.  This  was  the  Gospel  already  pre- 
pared to  fill  the  vacuum  which  the  Stoics,  inexor- 
ably driven  from  point  to  point  by  their  thought, 
were  so  clearly  creating.  ''  Why  look  to  these 
philosophers  for  healing,  who  are  sick  them- 
selves ;  shall  we  wait  till  Socrates  knows  some- 
thing, or  till  Anaxagoras  finds  light  in  darkness, 
or  till  Democritus  pulls  truth  out  of  the  well,  or 
till  Epicurus  widens  the  path  of  his  soul,  or  till 
Arcesilaus  and  Carneades  see,  feel,  and  perceive  ? 
Ecce  vox  de  ccelo  veritatein  docensy  Reply  was 
to  be  given  with  no  uncertain  sound,  yet  from 
most  unexpected  quarters.  The  babes  and  suck- 
lings were  soon  to  come  to  their  own. 

The  preparation  of  the  spirit  was  now  com- 
plete. Alike  in  its  negative  and  in  its  positive 
elements,  the  whole  age  was  big  with  needs,  with 
problems,  with  longings  ;  and  satisfaction  lagged 
or  failed  even  in  the  most  likely  places.  Upon 
such  a  universe  Christianity  burst,  taking  up  the 
good  elements  to  itself,  transforming  them  to 
higher  purposes,  and,  above  all,  revivifying  life 
by  pointing  to  a  practicable  ideal,  to  a  way  of 
salvation  that  had  been  already  trodden  by  a  Man 
of  Sorrows.  Superstition  was  justified  and  con- 
demned by  the  conception  of  God  the  Father; 
magic,  necromancy,   and  soothsaying  were   ex- 


l82  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

plained  away  by  the  operation  of  God  the  Holy 
Spirit ;  sin  lost  its  terrors,  and  came  to  be  viewed 
as  the  seed  of  a  transformed  life  in  the  light  of 
the  career  and  office  of  Christ  the  Son.  The 
Divine  and  the  Human  natures  at  lengtli  stood 
forth  clearly  linked  in  their  essential  spiritual 
unity,  and  the  very  defects  of  manhood  were  seen 
to  be  filled  to  overflowing  with  the  opportunities 
of  a  salvation  which  was  already  complete  in  and 
through  the  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ. 


CHAPTER  IX 

CONCLUSION 
"  Thou  hast  conquered,  O  Galilean  !  " 

The  flood  of  preparation  for  Christianity  flows 
steadily  down  the  ages  in  three  main  streams — 
the  Greek,  ever  bearing  on  its  sparkling  surface 
the  one  burden,  the  humane  character  of  man  ; 
the  Jewish,  gradually  becoming  clearer,  till  it 
mirrors  the  nature  of  the  one  true  God,  then 
losing  itself  amid  the  rocks  of  formalism,  anon 
bursting  its  home  banks  and  overflowing  with 
fertilizing  influence  into  many  far  off  lands ;  the 
Roman,  swamping  a  world  in  its  majestic  cur- 
rent, then  exhausting  itself  in  the  endless  eddies 
caused  by  the  junction  of  innumerable  tribu- 
taries. 

The  problem  of  Greek  civilization  was  the 
problem  of  man's  freedom — self-dependence,  and 
self-determination  constituted  its  watchwords.  In 
the  palmy  days,  citizens  of  no  mean  city  found 
opportunities  and  to  spare  for  the  realization  of 
the  most  balanced  manhood  then  conceivable. 
Obligation  to  serve  the  state  and  to  suppress  self 
in  this  ministry  they  deemed  liberty,  because 
thus,  and  only  thus,  could  the  highest  qualities  of 
the  human  being  they  knew  grow  to  perfection. 
But  at  a  later  date  positions  shifted.  Service  of 
an  alien  monarch,  dowered  with  none  of  the  re- 
turns familiar  to  the  freeman  of  the  Periclean 
age,  betrayed  the  true  nature  of  the  once  vaunted 
citizenship — necessity — and  so  freedom  seemed 
to   be   obtainable,    not   in,    but   rather   despite, 

183 


184  PREPARATION   FOR   CHRISTIANITY 

society.  Thus  by  slow  steps  the  Greek  was 
forced  to  bear  the  burden  of  personality,  to  probe 
its  infinite  demands,  and  to  learn  somewhat  its 
inherent  inability  to  satisfy  itself.  Yet,  in  the 
process,  he  garnered  conclusions  which  are 
among  the  undying  possessions  to  be  transmitted 
from  generation  to  generation  for  ever.  He  laid 
strong  hold  upon  the  ultimate  need  for  self-de- 
velopment and,  although  he  only  descried  the 
ideal  very  far  off,  and  through  the  uncertain  haze 
of  his  own  atmosphere,  he  schooled  himself  to 
know  that,  except  by  faith  in  a  moral  consumma- 
tion, no  man  could  rise  to  relative  perfection  of 
character.  Accordingly,  his  it  was  to  encounter 
evils  and  shatterings  of  his  dearest  desire,  but  of 
sin  and  its  root  in  the  perversity  of  the  human 
heart  he  remained  wholly  ignorant.  Self  inter- 
posed between  him  and  that  sacrifice  wherein 
weakness  perfects  strength.  Courage,  steadfast- 
ness, and  the  justice  born  of  civic  patriotism  he 
represented  with  unerring  wisdom,  nay,  lived  out 
in  his  best  days.  To  self-abasement,  chastity, 
meekness,  and  the  merits  of  a  service  of  all,  he 
was  destined  ever  to  be  an  utter  stranger.  The 
mere  suggestion  of  dying  for  a  barbarian  or  for 
a  slave  would  have  savored  to  him,  not  so  much 
of  bad  morals,  as  of  ill-regulated  manners.  Such 
conceptions  did  not  fall  anywhere  within  his 
horizon.  So,  when  his  turn  to  share  the  doom  of 
barbarian  and  slave  arrived,  when  he  was  rel- 
egated to  the  position  of  paid  teacher  to  the 
Roman  Empire,  he  knew  neither  how  to  save 
himself  nor  whither  to  turn  for  sorely  needed 
consolation.  The  problem  of  freedom  became 
the  problem  of  personality;  and  as  the  civic 
solution  of  the  one  had  impaired  the  conception 
of  the  other,  the  unrestful  rest  of  hopelessness 
fell  to  him  as  final  lot. 


Conclusion  185 

The  Jew  began  where  the  Greek  ended.  If 
Stoicism  closed  with  the  conviction  that  evils 
were  unavoidably  incident  to  the  very  constitu- 
tion of  the  soul,  the  Jews  started  from  the  belief 
that  man  was  no  creator  save  in  his  indubitable 
power  to  produce  sin.  If  Greek  polytheism 
tended  at  the  last  towards  a  shadowy  monotheism, 
the  Jew  built  his  hope  upon  the  one  personal 
and  ethical  God.  Hence  his  entire  outlook 
upon  life  could  not  but  be  different.  Neither 
distinctively  artistic,  nor  intellectual,  nor  civic, 
he  was  preeminently  religious.  Spiritual  insight 
was  his  pearl  of  great  price.  Yet  he  reserved 
this  treasure  for  himself,  and  necessarily  so. 
Had  he  not  surrounded  it  with  the  triple  brass  of 
race,  nationality,  and  custom,  it  would  certainly 
have  been  besmirched,  nay,  it  mighthavebeen  lost 
to  humanity  irrevocably.  And  the  more  he  was 
forced  to  struggle,  the  sterner  the  hardships  and  mis- 
fortunes he  was  called  upon  to  endure,  the  more, 
under  Providence,  he  unconsciously  provided  for 
its  preservation.  Thus  he  stored  up  intensity, 
and  a  marvellous  grasp  upon  the  spiritual  grew 
with  him,  projecting  him  into  that  inexhaustible 
treasure-house,  the  future,  wherein  his  principate 
was  preserved,  destined  to  a  glorious  realization, 
as  he  thought.  Hence,  when  driven  from  the 
homeland,  or  attracted  elsewhere,  he  carried  with 
him  a  veritable  revelation  to  less  favored  races. 
The  one  God  after  whom  they  blindly  groped  he 
could  set  forth ;  the  conception  of  solidarity 
among  men,  to  which  their  selecter  spirits  were 
slowly  moving,  he  had  long  since  exemplified  in 
the  close-knit  unity  of  his  people;  above  all,  he 
had  something  to  live  for — life  interested  him 
and  sufficed  him,  not  as  a  thing  merely  to  be 
analyzed  or  used,  not  as  a  mystery  before  which 
to  stand  abashed  or  to  grovel  superstitiously,  but 


1 86  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITV 

as  a  means  tending  to  a  mighty  consummation 
reserved  for  a  future  infinitely  more  vital  than 
even  the  most  sanctified  past.  Yet,  although 
well  able  to  satisfy  pagan  cravings,  he  withheld 
his  gifts,  or  so  burdened  them  with  conditions  as 
to  bar  their  ready  acceptance.  For  the  Jew, 
the  precious  teaching  was  ever  associated  with 
national  heritage,  often  with  temporary  or  acci- 
dental accompaniments.  Circumcision  must 
needs  seal  the  spiritual  change,  submission  to 
the  rules  of  the  Law  must  needs  signify  and  main- 
tain it.  So  other  monotheistic  cults,  such  as 
those  of  Isis  and  Mithra,  seduced  his  proselytes, 
or  they  were  left  standing  at  the  gate,  permitted 
to  view  the  elect,  but  not  bidden  to  be  of  them. 
The  generosity  that  breeds  enthusiasm  lingered 
far  off;  in  the  nature  of  things  humanity  could 
not  so  narrow  itself  as  to  become  a  single  nation, 
even  with  participation  in  so  great  benefits  as 
prospective  reward. 

The  Roman's  chiefest  gift  was  unbending  de- 
votion to  duty.  He  never  wearied  of,  was  ever 
instant  in,  well-doing.  Yet  this  very  strength 
brought  his  weakness  into  prominence.  His 
well-doing  savored  too  often  of  cruelty  and  ruth- 
lessness.  And,  when  he  came  to  his  kingdom, 
material  domination  limited  his  horizon  over- 
much. Nevertheless,  he  forced  men  into  one 
polity,  while  circumstances  helped  him  to  render 
them  of  one  tongue  and,  to  an  exceptional  extent, 
of  one  culture.  In  performing  these  tasks,  he 
levelled  material  barriers  and  so  caused  many 
nations  to  commune  with  one  another.  The 
very  vastness  of  the  field  wherein  his  legal  sys- 
tem held  sway  drew  attention  to  the  rights  of 
men  as  human  beings,  and  associated  this  natural 
claim  with  a  depth  of  sanction  and  width  of 
application  that  placed  it  on  a  par  with  physical 


CONCLUSION  187 

law.  But  just  as  his  overt  actions  tended  thus  to 
enhance  the  importance  of  the  individual,  they 
also  operated  so  as  to  loosen  social  bonds.  All 
were  bidden  to  put  off  nationality,  and  so  to  each 
his  own  selfhood  grew  more  and  more  engross- 
ing. Universal  toleration  eviscerated  faiths  once 
firmly  established  in  the  affections  of  smaller  but 
more  homogeneous  groups  and,  by  permitting 
unrestricted  freedom,  blotted  out  the  significance 
of  any  one  choice.  Roman  materialism,  or  real- 
ism, bred  superstition  among  the  masses,  indiffer- 
ence among  the  classes,  and  otiose  ideals  among 
all.  Those  who,  driven  back  upon  self,  experi- 
enced the  dire  necessity  for  salvation,  always 
thought  of  a  change  limited  to  the  single  soul, 
and  excluded  the  idea  of  widespread  participa- 
tion. And  just  as  the  Empire  became  the  place 
of  humanity  without  men,  so  Stoicism  took  to 
itself  a  doctrine  of  mediation  without  providing 
any  mediator.  Lifeless  or  inverted  or  amorphous 
ideals  thus  became  the  last  resort  of  Grseco-Ro- 
man  culture.  Powerless  power  set  itself  down 
upon  the  human  heart;  atrophy  attacked  the 
spiritual  eye ;  the  colossal  masqueraded  as  the 
imperishable.  Meanwhile,  the  one  imperishable 
work  of  God,  man's  mysteriously  double  nature, 
had  starvation  as  its  portion.  All  old  things 
were  passing  away;  the  religious  and  moral 
worlds  awaited  renewal. 

Christ  and  His  work  entered  upon  this  ma- 
terially splendid,  spiritually  bankrupt  heritage. 
Good  will  towards  men  was  preached  as  the  basis 
of  a  fresh  interpretation  of  human  nature,  and 
especially  of  an  insight  into  its  intrinsically  infi- 
nite worth.  Amid  universal  misconception  and 
intolerance,  the  Gospel  steadily  stepped  to  su- 
premacy by  its  inward  superiority,  by  its  fidelity 
to  divine  and  human  nature,  above  all,  by  the 


155  PREPARATION    FOR    CHRISTIANITY 

accomplishment  in  Christ  of  everything  that  a 
man  ought  to  become  in  order  to  attain  the  dig- 
nity of  true  manhood.  The  ancient  world,  in 
each  of  its  main  life-streams,  had  been  slowly 
but  inevitably  precipitating  itself  upon  the  most 
gigantic  crisis  that  history  has  ever  seen.  Christ 
removed  the  central  cause  and,  in  cancelling  it, 
redeemed  the  human  race,  not  only  from  its 
former  follies  and  misconceptions,  but  from  a 
repetition  of  them,  if  at  any  time  it  will  but 
hearken  to  His  voice.  The  wisdom  of  Jesus  re- 
vealed depths  hidden  from  the  Greek  sage  and 
perceived  but  dimly  even  by  the  Jewish  prophet ; 
His  kingdom  bore  the  stamp  of  a  universality 
which  that  of  Rome  served  but  to  foreshadow, 
and  this  in  a  half-world;  His  doctrine  found 
final  justification  in  His  life  as  the  highest  and 
best  possible  for  a  human  being;  His  revelation 
left  nothing  still  to  be  revealed.  And  when  we 
tend  to  doubt  Him  as,  pressed  by  unfamiliar 
circumstances,  we  still  sometimes  do,  we  have 
but  to  turn  back  to  the  Preparation  to  see  there 
our  own  situation  and  its  inevitable  consequences. 
Sometimes,  in  access  of  knowledge,  we  would 
win  salvation  by  reason;  if  so,  the  despair  of 
the  Greek  awaits  us.  Sometimes,  elated  by 
sense  of  work  well  done,  we  deem  ourselves  of 
the  elect ;  then  let  us  con  the  fate  of  the  Jew. 
Most  often,  in  our  newly  acquired  dominion 
over  the  earth's  forces,  we  tend  to  see  in  nature 
and  mechanical  cause  adequate  explanation  of 
spiritual  life ;  here  we  have  the  end  of  the  old 
Roman  world — power  without  insight — for  our 
teacher.  We  may  not,  because  we  cannot,  go 
beyond  Christ's  own  statement  of  the  meaning 
to  be  attached  to  past  history  and  to  present  op- 
portunity:    *'A11  that  which  the  Father  giveth 


CONCLUSION  189 

me  shall  come  unto  me ;  and  him  that  cometh 
unto  me  I  will  in  nowise  cast  out." 

The  value  of  careful  study  of  the  Preparation 
for  Christianity  is  to  be  sought  most  of  all  in  the 
opportunities  it  affords  us  of  clearly  realizing  the 
demands  made  upon  Christ,  the  nature  of  His  re- 
sponse, and  its  incomparable  adequacy.  Familiar 
with  all  these,  what  must  our  ultimate  judgment 
be?  This:  '*  The  Lord  so  ordained  it  that  we 
should  come  to  Jesus  as  to  a  great  and  good  man, 
becoming  infected  with  His  spirit  and  imbued 
with  love  of  Him  as  of  a  mortal  being ;  and 
then,  when  He  had  caught  our  hearts  as  it  were 
by  guile,  so  that  He  had  made  Himself  now 
needful  unto  us  even  as  the  very  breath  of  our 
lives,  then  began  He  to  say  unto  us,  *  Whom  say 
ye  that  I,  the  Son  of  man,  am? '  And  lo,  trying 
our  hearts,  we  began  to  perceive  that  this  same 
Son  of  man,  who  had  so  given  life  to  our  souls, 
could  be  none  other  than  the  very  Son  of  the 
living  God." 


Index 


i^SCHYLUS,  35,  37. 

Alexander  the  Great,  73,  113,  121,  122,  152,  156. 

Amos,  10 1. 

Antiochus  Epiphanes,  113,  121,  123,  126. 

Aristotle,  27,  48,  50  seq.^  80,  96, 

,  defects  of  the  teaching  of,  62  seq. 

,  Plato,  and  Socrates,  52  seq. 

and  Plato,  modernness  of,  57. 

Athens,  25,  29,  38,  45,  72, 

Augustus  Caesar,  144,  153,  160,  169,  170. 

Caligula,  178. 

Captivity,  the,  113. 

Christ,  22,  136  seq.f  182,  187  seq. 

and  Socrates,  24,  42. 

Christianity,  Preparation  for,  183  seq. 
Christians  and  Jews,  93  seq. 
Citizenship,  Greek,  the  decline  of,  74  seq. 
City,  the  Greek,  29  seq.,  164. 

,  the  modern,  25  seq. 

Civilization  and  language,  150  seq. 

Demosthenes,  31. 

Dispersion,  the  Jewish,  105,  121,  122,  175  seq. 

ECCLESIASTICUS,   1 23. 

Epicureanism,  75,  76  seq.^  86  seq,^  99. 

Essenes,  135. 

Euripides,  31,  35. 

Euthydemus,  41. 

Exile,  the,  1 14  seq. 

Ezekiel,  108,  115. 

Ezra,  113,  118  seq. 

Farrar,  F.  W.,  160. 

191 


192  INDEX 

Gospel,  history  as  a,  9  seq. 
Greek  cardinal  virtues,  59  seq. 

citizenship,  decline  of,  74  seq. 

city,  29  seq.,  164. 

culture,  strength  and  weakness  of,  67  seq. 

— ,  Jew  and  Roman,  decline  of,  19,  20. 

and  Jewish  ethics,  106  seq. 

mysteries,  171,  172, 

religion,  33  seq.,  167  seq. 

thought,  35  seq. 

Haggai,  178. 

Hasmonaeans,  124. 

Herod  the  Great,  125,  133. 

Hillel,  131. 

History  as  a  Gospel,  9  seq. 

and  society,  12, 

Homer,  n,  34,  166. 

Ideals,  kinds  of,  13  seq. 
Isaiah,  99. 

Isis,  worship  of,  172  seq.,  186. 
Israel,  prophets  of,  lOO  seq.,  108. 

Jew,  Greek  and  Roman,  decline  of,  19,  20. 
Jewish  legalism,  97,  106  seq. 
Jews  and  Christians,  93  seq. 

,  dispersion  of  the,  105,  121,  122,  175  seq, 

,  exile  of  the,  1 14  seq, 

,  mission  of  the,  93  seq.,  104  seq. 

John  Baptist,  133  seq. 
John  Hyrcanus,  131. 
Judaism,  93  seq.,  120  seq. 
Judas  Maccabeus,  124. 
Julius  Caesar,  144. 

Language  and  civilization,  150  seq. 
Legalism,  Jewish,  97,  106  seq. 
Lucretius,  79. 

Malachi,  99,  lOI. 

Messianic  expectation,  the,  131  seq. 

Mission  of  the  Jews,  177. 

Nehemiah,  113,  118  seq. 
Nero,  160,  171, 


INDEX 


193 


Origen,  151. 

Pagan  Reaction,  the,  170  seq. 

Passion  and  reason,  84. 

Paul,  St.,  127,  141,  157,  173,  176. 

Pharisees,  98,  99,  124,  126  seq.,  130. 

Philip  of  Macedonia,  73. 

Philosophy,  science  and  religion,  108  seq. 

Plato,  24,  25,  40,  48,  50  seq.,  72,  80,  96,  99,  lOO,  I03. 

,  defects  of  the  teaching  of,  62  seq. 

,  Socrates  and  Aristotle,  52  seq. 

and  Aristotle,  modernness  of,  57. 

,  '•  Republic  "  of,  53. 

Plutarch,  25,  71,  103,  146,  158,  159. 

Polytheism,  34. 

Preparation  for  Christianity,  183  seq. 

of  the  spirit,  158  seq. 

of  the  world,  143  seq. 

Prophets  of  Israel,  100  seq.,  108. 
Providence,  10. 

Reason  and  Passion,  84. 
Religion,  elements  in,  95. 

,  science  and  philosophy,  108  seq, 

"  Republic  "  of  Plato,  53. 
Return  of  the  Jews,  113,  117  seq. 
Roman  Empire,  the,  143  seq.,  186  seq. 

religion,  168  seq. 

,  Greek  and  Jew,  decline  of,  19,  20. 

Rome,  32,  169. 

Sadducees,  98,  99,  130,  135. 

Salvation  by  wisdom,  failure  of,  86  seq. 

Samaritans,  117. 

Sceptics,  75, 

Science,  Philosophy  and  Religion,  108  seq, 

Seneca,  82,  85,  158,  159. 

Septaugint,  177. 

Socialism,  31  seq.,  65  seq. 

Society  and  history,  12. 

Socrates  and  Christ,  24,  42. 

,  death  of,  47. 

,  life-work  of,  40  seq. 

as  a  missionary  of  the  human  spirit,  24  seq, 

,  Plato  and  Aristotle,  52  seq. 

■  and  the  Sophists,  40  seq.,  50, 


194  .  INDEX 

Socrates,  defects  and  the  teaching  of,  43  seq. 
^  Socratic  gospel,  the,  42. 
>  Sophists,  37  seq. 

Sophocles,  35,  37. 

Sphinx  and  Oedipus,  166. 

Spirit,  preparation  of  the,  158  seq. 

Stoicism.  75,  81  seq.,  88  seq.,  96,  180  seq.^  187. 

Tacitus,  95,  96,  158,  159. 
Thucydides,  39,  96-7. 

Vespasian,  171. 

Virgil,  154. 

Virtues,  the  Greek  cardinal,  59  seq, 

/  "Wisdom,  failure  of  salvation  by,  86  seq. 
World,  preparation  of  the,  143  seq. 

Xenophon,  24,  41,  43. 

'  Zealots,  135. 
Zerubbabel,  113,  117,  118. 


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and  on  the  theological  schools  cf  Rothe  and  Ritschi,  are  admi- 
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"  This  is  a  timely  little  book  by  a  thinker  who  is  well  known 
...  as  one  of  the  ablest  of  the  younger  philosophical  school. 
...  It  shows  on  every  page  not  only  adequate  knowledge  but 
the  sympathy  necessary  for  true  and  effective  criticism."— ^l/az/ 
{Glasgow). 

"  This  is  a  brief,  comprehensive,  and  thoroughly  competent 
guide  to  recent  advances  in  theology.  Most  of  us  have  felt  the 
need  of  such  a  book.  For  recently  the  advances  of  theology 
have  been  somewhat  rapid,  and  we  are  not  even  sure  if  they 
are  all  advances.  .  .  .  Moreover,  his  book  is  very  pleasant  to 
read.  Again  we  have  it  confirmed  that  good  scholarship  and 
bad  writing  have  no  indivisible  connection."  —  Expository 
Times  {London). 

"It  answers  a  need  of  the  time,  and  I  sympathize  heartily 
with  the  main  tendency  which  it  embodies.  I  wish  it  the  best 
success,  and  will  endeavor,  so  far  as  I  can,  to  draw  the  atten- 
tion of  German  specialists  to  it." — Pro/.  Eucken.Jena. 

Socrates  and  Christ :  A  Study  in  the 
Philosophy  of  Religion.  $240. 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  New  York. 

"As  a  whole,  it  must  be  pronounced  a  brilliant  analysis. 
Mr.  Wenley  picks  his  way  among  large  generalizations  with 
clear  and  firm  step.  His  criticism  is  full  of  penetration,  .  .  . 
and  will  be  found  both  richly  informing  and  suggestive." — 
Critical  Revie^v  0/ Philosophical  Literature. 

"A  thoughtful  and  able  book,  which  no  one  will  read  with- 
out the  deepest  interest.  The  style  is  good  throughout,  with  a 
pleasant  tendency  to  epigrammatic  utterance,  especially  in  the 
earlier  chapters."— G/aj^^w  Herald. 

"This  book  should  rank  in  the  first  class  of  theological  liter- 
ature. It  is  learned,  thoughtful,  and  profound." — Irish  Eccle^ 
siastical  Gazette. 

"  The  book  is  one  that  cannot  be  read  without  sympathy  and 
respect." — Saturday  Review. 

"  For  the  major  portion  of  the  contents  of  this  book  we  have 
nothing  but  praise.  The  account  given  of  the  philosophic 
world  before  the  appearance  of  Christ  is  clear,  concise,  and  ad- 
mirable, and  the  author's  style  is  always  charming." — Mart' 
Chester  Courier. 

"  Places  him  in  the  first  rank  of  Scottish  thinkers."— .5r//zjA 
Weekly. 


Aspects  of  Pessimism.     $2.40.    Charles 
Scribner's  Sons,  New  York. 

"While  we  could  have  wished  that  so  capable  a  critic  and 
So  able  and  interesting  a  writer  had  undertaken  the  construct- 
ive work  which  he  expressly  disclaims  having  attempted,  we 
are  heartily  thankful  for  what  he  has  given  us.  .  .  .  We  heart- 
ily recommend  it  to  all  who  are  interested  in  watching  the 
course  of  current  thought — still  more  to  those  who  are  striving 
to  guide  it  in  a  right  direction.''— (^^^r/^r/j/  Review. 

"In  all  the  essays  there  is  evidence  of  a  thorough  mastery 
of  detail  and  a  facile  art  in  bringing  the  salient  points  into 
prominence.  ...  In  a  passage  of  striking  force  and  eloquence 
which  closes  the  essay  on  Jewish  Pessimism,  we  find  the  clue 
which  Mr.Wenley  offers  for  the  understanding  of  the  universe." 
— Scottish  Reviezv. 

"A  very  able  book,  full  of  interest  and  suggestiveness.  .  .  . 
Such,  in  barest  outline,  seems  to  be  the  pith  of  a  discussion 
which,  for  penetration  and  cogency,  could  hardly  be  surpassed. 
.  .  .  One  is  tempted  to  linger,  for  almost  every  page  has  some 
sentence  worth  quoting.' —CrzV/ca/  Review  of  Philosophical 
Literature. 

"Dr.  Wenley  devotes  great  erudition  and  critical  research 
to  the  consideration  of  Pessimism.  ...  He  has  presented  a 
very  repulsive  topic  in  a  very  attractive  form." — Mind. 

"  We  do  not  remember  to  have  seen  it  so  effectively  put  be- 
fore."—6"^. /aw^^yV  Gazette. 

"It  is  a  book  for  the  thinker,  lay  and  professional,  and  its 
criticisms  on  contemporary  thought  must  undoubtedly  come  to 
be  reckoned  with.  Throughout,  Mr.  Wenley  has  shown  great 
capacity  for  keeping  himself  clear  of  partisanship,  and  in  this 
respect  we  regard  his  book  as  invaluable  to  students — theolog- 
ical, literary,  and  philosophical."— G/rtj^(7w  Herald, 


